GIFT  or 
j      George  B^ Allen 


"THE  LIFE  AND  LIGHT 
OF  MEN" 


*'The  Life  (the  Living  One)  was  the  Light  of  men."— John  5.  4. 

"  The  true  Light,  which  lighteth  every  man,  ivas  covrhig  into 
the  world."— John  i.  9. 


'THE  LIFE  AND  LIGHT 
OF   MEN" 


^n  C!^S0S2 


By  JOHN  YOUNG,  ll.d.  (edin  :) 
(I 


*]"-*''**  \' '  I  '> 


ALEXANDER  STRAHAN,  PUBLISHER 

LONDON  AND  NEW  YORK 

1866 


GIFI 


«    t    «« 


i^foati0n. 


TO 


THE  MODERATOE,  MINISTERS,  AND  ELDERS 


OP  THE 


UNITED  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH. 


Fathers  and  Brethren, — 

Some  years  ago,  you  are  aware,  I  retired 
from  the  Ministry  of  Albion  Chapel,  and  at  the  same 
time  resigned  my  connexion  with  the  United  Presbyterian 
Church.  The  first  had  its  meaning  chiefly  in  the  second. 
Had  it  been  possible  to  have  remained  in  the  Church,  I 
should  never  have  relinquished  the  special  charge,  for  the 
people  to  whom  I  ministered  deserved  everything  at  my 
hands,  which  was  consistent  with  the  obligations  of  an 
earlier  and  holier  fidelity.  But  it  was  not  possible.  I 
had  ceased  to  regard  the  articles  of  our  faith  in  the  light  in 

416512 


VI  DEDICATION. 


which  I  once  had  seen  them,  and  was  unable  to  limit  my- 
self by  the  Confession  and  Formularies  of  the  Church. 

The  ground  of  my  resignation  was  not  broadly  pro- 
claimed at  the  time,  but  was  left  to  be  inferred,  as  it  very 
readily  could  be,  and  as,  in  point  of  fact,  it  was  by  all  who 
knew  the  circumstances.  I  have  ever  since  been  thankful 
that  I  was  hindered  from  prematurely  thrusting  on  wider 
notice  an  affair  of  personal  and  private  life.  Had  this 
been  done,  mischief  might  have  followed,  without  real 
benefit  in  any  important  direction.  At  the  same  time,  I 
have  not  been  ignorant  that  a  reticence,  which  being  tem- 
porary, was  justifiable,  and  even  incumbent,  all  the  cir- 
cumstances considered,  if  persisted  in,  beyond  the  limits  of 
the  necessity,  might  deserve  to  be  branded  as  cowardice 
and  disloyalty  to  truth.  I  have  also  felt  that  something 
was  due  to  you,  and  to  the  sacred  relation  in  which,  espe- 
cially in  the  years  of  my  pastorate,  I  stood  to  you,  some- 
thing to  the  cordial  friendship),  to  which,  now  as  before,  I 
am  admitted  by  valued  ministers  and  members  of  the 
United  Presbyterian  Church,  and  something  also  to  myself, 
to  the  position  which  I  held,  and  to  my  personal  truth- 
fulness and  integrity.  The  three  inconsiderable  volumes, 
bearing  my  name,  which  have  been  published  in  the  last 
few  years,  were  intended,  amongst  other  purposes,  to  serve 
as  a  partial  discharge  of  these  obligations,  and  the  work 
which  I  now  dedicate  to  you,  is  a  further  instalment  with 
the  same  motive  and  aim. 


DEDICATION.  Vll 


Thoroughly  at  one  with  the  Churches  called  evangelical^ 
in  all  that  is  really  essential,  I  do  not  imagine  that  truth, 
and  nothing  but  truth  is  with  them,  and  only  with  them  : 
that  they  are  all  right,  and  all  others  all  wrong.  Can  it  be 
deemed  presumptuous  to  suppose  that  there  may  be  errors 
in  our  evangelical  teaching,  and  grave  dangers  to  which 
these  errors  are  likely  to  lead?  And  has  there  never  been 
cause  to  condemn,  in  our  public  action,  as  a  party,  manifest 
narrowness  and  bigotry,  and  still  more — what  has  at  least 
seemed  to  be  disingenuousness  and  intolerance?  But  these 
and  such  things  notwithstanding,  the  evidence  to  me  is 
abundant  that  the  divine  spirit  of  Christianity  is  mightily 
working  in  the  evangelical  churches,  and  that  the  warmth 
and  the  living  energy  of  true  religion,  piety  towards  God, 
and  love  towards  man,  and  those  holy  central  impulses 
which  originate  and  sustain  all  the  highest  good  that  is 
done  on  earth,  are  to  be  found  very  largely  in  them. 

Fathers  and  brethren  !  I  was  baptized,  admitted  to  the 
holy  communion,  trained  and  educated  in  that  church,  of 
which  you  are  the  acknowledged  heads.  I  think  I  under- 
stand the  evangelical  faith  as  maintained  by  you,  and 
especially  what,  in  these  days,  is  considered  its  leading, 
testing  article.  I  think  I  understand  what  is  meant  by  the 
sacrifice  of  Christ,  the  atonement  for  sin  (involving  the 
idea  of  satisfaction  to  justice)  through  his  blood.  Cer- 
tainly, I  am  much  to  blame,  if  I  do  not  understand  it. 
I  have  been  most  carefully  instructed  in  it,  from  my  earliest 


Vm  DEDICATION. 


youth  upward,  in  the  family,  from  the  pulpit,  and  from 
the  chair  of  our  Theological  Hall.  Its  ground,  its  nature, 
its  evidences,  and  its  defences  have  long  been  familiar  to 
me,  and  all  my  prepossessions,  and  prejudices,  and  associa- 
tions, and  circumstances  national,  educational,  hereditary, 
ecclesiastical,  and  social,  have  been  in  favour  of  it.  So 
far  as  an  ordinary  capacity  can  justify  the  claim,  I  may 
claim,  without  presumption,  to  understand  this  special 
tenet.  I  well  know,  besides,  that  by  thousands  of  godly 
and  devoted  souls,  this  is  regarded  as  the  very  life  of  their 
life,  the  -ground  of  their  well-being,  and  the  one  solitary 
hope  of  the  whole  world,  a  protecting  shield  also,  thrown 
around  the  Almighty  himself,  and  a  sun  which  pours  its 
glory  on  His  perfections  and  His  nature.  They  believe 
that  from  this  source  peace  is  shed  into  their  hearts,  that 
by  this  the  sacred  fire  is  supplied,  which  kindles  them  to 
purity  and  love,  to  heroic  daring,  and  noble  endurance, 
and  that  all  their  happiest  thoughts  of  God,  all  their 
strongest  motives  to  holy  living,  all  their  selectest  moments 
of  spiritual  communion,  and  all  their  clearest  visions  of  the 
eternal  future,  are  derived  from  this.  Were  this  to  go,  they 
believe  that  everything  valuable  and  essential  would  perish 
with  it. 

I  could  not  attempt  to  disturb,  if  such  a  thing  were  in 
my  power,  a  faith  like  this,  did  I  not  believe,  as  I  do,  that 
all  which  is  really  essential  in  the  common  convictions 
would  abide  untouched ;  that  divine  peace  in  the  troubled 


DEDICATION.  IX 

heart  of  man  would  be  even  more  secure ;  tliat  the  pure 
free  grace  of  the  Almighty,  in  the  redemption  of  the 
world  through  our  Loid  Jesus  Christ,  away  from  all  idea 
of  human  merit,  would  be  more  firmly  established  ;  that  the 
impression  of  the  mercy  of  God,  and  of  the  dying  love  of 
the  Kedeemer  of  men,  would  be  far  deeper ;  and  that  all  the 
motives  to  holy  living,  and  all  the  purest  influences  of  the 
cross  on  Calvary,  would  be  multiplied  and  intensified. 

At  the  same  time,  and  on  the  other  hand,  the  unquali- 
fied admission  is  here  made  most  gladly,  that  the  doctrine 
of  satisfaction,  as  usually  taught  among  us,  is  often,  very 
often,  held  in  association  W-ith  the  most  exalted  piety  and 
with  the  purest  virtue.  Judging  by  the  limited  experience 
of  my  life,  I  have  never  found,  and  I  never  expect  to  find, 
nobler  examples  of  the  true  fear  of  God,  of  unbending 
moral  principle  and  of  generous,  self-sacrificing  devotion  to 
the  good  of  others,  than  in  the  evangelical  churches.  A 
"  creed  "  so  called,  is  but  a  small  part  of  the  true  man,  and 
the  worst  side  of  the  professed  creed,  as  I  humbly  presume 
to  judge,  is  often  unconsciously,  but  habitually  kept  down, 
while  the  best  side  almost  entirely  is  left  to  exert  its  force 
upon  the  mind,  and  to  form  the  character  after  the  purest 
model  of  spiritual  excellence.  Multitudes  in  the  past  have 
found  the  seed  of  eternal  life,  in  spite,  as  I  venture  to 
think,  of  rigorous  and  false  conceptions  of  Christ's  sacri- 
fice, multitudes  at  this  hour  find,  and  multitudes  in  the 
time  coming  may  yet  find,  through  the  same  medium,  the 


DEDICATION. 


incorruptible  germ  of  renewed  being.  It  is  not  imagined 
by  them,  that  living  love  of  Christ  and  filial  self-surrender 
to  the  redeeming,  reconciling  God  in  him,  can  ever  be 
separated  from  such  conceptions,  and  far  less  is  it  believed, 
that  only  when  thus  separated  they  are  most  pure,  most 
noble,  and  least  open  to  the  possibility  of  abuse. 

Fathers  and  brethren !  I  have  "satisfied  my  mind  that 
the  conclusions  put  forth  in  this  volume  are  substantially 
true,  but  I  am  very  fi\r  from  imagining  that  they  are  per- 
fectly and  wholly  true.  There  are  a  few  things  to  us 
men,  sure  and  stable  as  the  universe,  or  as  the  Great  God 
himself.  In  principles,  strictly  so  called,  in  all  that  we 
see  to  be  eternal,  immutable,  universal,  we  can  repose  with 
the  calm  conviction  of  absolute  truth.  But  wherever  the 
positive  element  intrudes — and  where  does  it  not  intrude  1 — 
the  penalty  of  partial  insecurity,  and  uncertainty,  must  be 
borne.  In  every  so-called  truth,  as  conceived  and  stated 
by  any  human  being,  there  must  always  be  the  taint  either 
of  defect,  or  of  error,  or  of  both  ;  and  conversely,  in  every 
so-called  error^  as  taken  up  by  any  human  being,  there 
must  always  be  some  infusion  of  truth.  The  common 
proverb  popularises  without  degrading,  a  principle  which  is 
of  unlimited  application,  "one  man's  poison  is  another 
man's  food,"  that  is,  he  is  able  to  find  in  it  some  alimentary 
power,  some  particles  which  he  can  convert  and  assimilate 
to  his  own  living  substance.  On  the  other  hand,  "  one 
man's  food  is  another  man's  poison,"  that  is,  he  finds  in  it 


DEDICATION.  XI 


what  is  so  distasteful,  that  liis  physical  system  rejects  it, 
and  would  render  it  destructive  to  the  vital  functions. 

Tlie  nutritive,  alimentary  power  for  the  spirit,  as  for  the 
body,  easily  distinguished  in  the  generality  of  cases,  is  yet 
subtle  and  mysterious,  and  may  exist  in  very  varying 
amount,  and  in  most  diverse  and  unlikely  combinations. 
It  does  not  belong  to  men,  to  determine  for  one  another 
where  it  may  or  may  not  be  found  sufficient  to  sustain 
soul-life,  or  in  how  many  opposite  forms,  and  in  spite  of 
what  gross  adulterations,  it  may  be  sifted  out  by  the 
spiritual,  as  by  the  physical  system,  so  as  to  support  a  real, 
though  strange  vitality.  Truth,  pure  and  simple,  perfect 
on  all  sides,  is  only  for  the  One  Unerring  Mind.  Error, 
unmitigated  and  unmixed,  can  be  only  for  the  reprobate 
and  refuse  of  our  race.  On  this  earth,  constituted  as  we 
are,  and  in  a  state  of  confessed  imperfection,  we  may 
anticipate  knowledge,  without  defect,  and  without  flaw; 
but  it  must  be  beyond  and  above,  not  here. 

Fathers  and  brethren, 

I  am,  with  unfeigned  respect  and  regard, 

Yours  faithfully, 

JOHN  YOUNG. 


PREFACE. 


rpHE  structure  and  form  of  this  work  are 
-^  due  to  necessity,  rather  than  choice.  The 
system  of  doctrine,  the  modes  of  thought,  and 
the  conventional  phrases  and  terms,  which  are 
common,  more  or  less,  to  all  the  evangelical 
churches,  rendered  a  method  of  treatment 
adapted  to  these  peculiarities  unavoidable.  It 
seemed  imperative,  that  those  whom,  first  of 
all,  it  was  sought  to  influence  should  be  met 
on  their  own  ground,  and  through  the  use  of 
their  own  selected  forms  of  speech. 

The  favourite  theological  phraseology  of  an 
earlier  period,  and  with  it  the  scholastic,  syste- 
matic treatment  of  religious  truth,  have  grown 
distasteful,  are  now  often  unintelligible,  and 


XIV  PEEPACE. 


certainly  are  quite  unappreciated.  Men  of 
free  and  wide  cultivation,  and  of  liberal  and 
generous  tendencies,  with  no  disrespect  to  the 
existing  sectional  distributions  of  Christianity, 
have  learned  to  generalise,  or  rather  to  uni- 
versalise,  the  principles  and  the  spirit  of  the 
New  Testament.  Instead  of  attempting  to  set 
its  manifold  deliverances  in  exact  logical  order, 
and  to  compact  them  into  a  fixed  system — a 
process  essentially  artificial,  and  always  desti- 
tute of  the  smallest  authority,  save  from  the 
wisdom  and  the  organising  faculty  of  indi- 
vidual men — they  have  learned  to  take  them 
just  as  they  lie  in  the  sacred  writings,  separate, 
scattered,  without  order  and  without  method, 
imperishable  seed,  but  sown  broadcast,  not  in 
straight  lines  drilled  with  mechanical  pre- 
cision. They  have  sought,  not  to  cut  them 
sharply  ofi",  but  to  connect  them  with  all  ex- 
isting and  concurrent  truth  wherever  it  may 
be  discovered,  and  to  look  for  their  ground, 
not  in  the  necessities  and  the  niceties  of  any 
artificial   system,   but  in  the  great  wants  of 


PEEFACE.  XV 


the  world,  in  the  essential  truth  of  things, 
and  in  the  eternal  excellences  of  the  Father  of 
all  souls.  They  have,  moreover,  sought  to  find 
the  highest  evidences  of  revealed  truth,  with- 
out in  the  least  undervaluing  other  regions  of 
proof,  in  the  nature  of  man  himself,  in  the  law 
originally  written  in  his  soul,  in  those  mysteri- 
ous and  holy  intuitions,  not  yet  erased,  which 
reveal,  if  anything  in  the  spiritual  structure 
can  reveal,  the  awful  presence  and  voice  of 
the  Creator.  Having  thus  emancipated  them- 
selves, as  they  believe,  from  human  creeds, 
they  stand  far  apart  from  those  who  are  not 
only  in  chains,  as  they  judge,  but  who  love 
and  exult  in  the  bondage.  Incapable  of  ap- 
preciating the  difficulties  which  oppress  others, 
they  scarcely  understand  at  all  how  such  diffi- 
culties should  be  felt,  and  are  uninterested  in 
the  reasonings  by  which  they  may  be  removed 
or  relieved.  They  occupy  a  totally  different 
region,  have  no  sympathy  with  what  they 
deem  narrow  conceptions,  and  are  offended 
by  a  phraseology  which  to  them  is  uncouth. 


XVI  PKEFACE. 


teclinical,  artificial,  and  nearly  unintelligible. 
But  all  the  while,  the  so-called  system  of  reli- 
gious truth,  logically  arranged  and  compacted, 
remains  a  fact,  make  of  it  what  we  will,  and 
demands  to  be  dealt  with  on  its  own  ground. 

It  is  common  in  these  days  to  speak,  not 
respectfully,  of  human  creeds  as  such.  They 
have  had  a  long  trial,  sufiicient,  it  is  thought, 
to  demonstrate  what  they  are  good  for,  and  to 
make  it  now  full  time  to  decide  conclusively, 
whether  the  amount  of  good  outweighs  the 
necessary  attendant  evil.  Instead  of  servants 
ministering  to  the  general  convenience,  and  to 
the  ready,  accurate,  and  economical  arrange- 
ment of  knowledge  and  of  thought,  the  creeds, 
some  allege,  have  grown  into  tyrants,  wielding 
a  sceptre  of  iron,  sometimes  glowing  with  fur- 
nace heat.  Instead  of  adapting  the  creeds  at 
successive  periods  to  an  advancing  elevation 
and  expansion  of  thought,  it  is  conceived  that 
the  vain  effort  has  been  made  to  adjust  the 
ever-growing  mind  of  the  world  to  their  un- 
changed bulk  and  shape — just  as  if,  in  a  library 


PREFACE.  Xvii 


with  its  fixed  lines  of  shelves,  instead  of  alter- 

ino;  the  shelves  to  the  size  of  the  books,  we 

should  cut  down  the  books  to  the  measure  of 

the  shelves. 

But  the  evangelical  creed  is  not  a  thing  to 

be  named  without  deep  respect,  whether  for  its 

intrinsic  character,  or  for  the  purposes  it  has 

served  as  a  spiritual  influence  on  the  nations 

of  Europe,  and  as  a  large   educator  of  the 

popular  mind.      It   has   undoubtedly  gained, 

and  it  has  long  preserved,  a  real,  a  deep,  and 

an  extended  sway.     Several  of  its  chief  points 

have  been  effectually  drilled  into  the  minds  of 

masses    of   the   people,    have    moulded   their 

thinking,  and  coloured  their   speech,  and   in 

part  created  for  them  a  new  vocabulary.     It 

is  a  product  on  which  the  intelligence,  the 

learning,  the  acuteness,  the  organising  power, 

and  the  practical  skill  of  many  of  the  ablest 

and  best  endowed  minds  of  Europe  have  been 

successively  bestowed.     It  is  unequalled  for 

the  vastness  of  its  sweep  :  first  of  all,  reaching 

back,  (surely  not  without  hazard  of  blasphemy,) 

h 


XVIU  PREFACE, 


to  what  is  styled,  "  The  Council  of  Eternity/'  to 
the  absolute  decrees  of  God  issued  by  that 
council,  and  to  the  concerted  plan  for  their 
gradual  evolution  in  the  course  of  the  ages  ; 
then,  tracing  the  entire  history  of  redemption 
in  all  its  principles  and  methods,  from  the 
creation  and  the  apostasy  of  man,  on  through 
the  antediluvian,  patriarchal,  and  Jewish  eras, 
to  the  Incarnation  and  the  Cross ;  and  then, 
stretching  forward  from  these,  beyond  all  the 
Christian  ages,  to  the  consummation,  the  last 
judgment,  and  the  life  everlasting.  It  is  a 
work  of  profound  thought,  and  of  severe  ela- 
boration, it  is  based  on  hard  strong  argument, 
it  is  constructed  with  rare  logical  ability  and 
ingenuity,  and  will  be  found  altogether  most 
compact  and  skilfully  arranged  and  consoli- 
dated. There  may  be  gaps  in  the  wall  of 
enclosure  which  protects  what  is  called  the 
system  of  revealed  truth,  and  these  may  be 
left  to  be  filled  up  by  individuals  as  they  best 
can,  but  it  is  impossible  not  to  marvel  at  the 
massiveness  and  the  extent  of  the  defences. 


PKEFACE.  XIX 


and  at  the  amount  of  labour,  of  skill,  and  of 
intellectual  prowess  and  power  which  have 
been  expended  on  them. 

Some  of  the  most  holy  and  honoured  men, 
Augustin  and  Anselm  and  Luther  and  Calvin, 
and  multitudes  hardly  less  distinguished,  Ca- 
tholic doctors,  and  later  Protestant  divines,  as 
well  as  Waldensian,  Bohemian,  French,  British, 
and  other  confessors,  have  had  a  share,  more 
or  less,  in  this  great  work.  It  is  not  the  crea- 
tion of  one  age  or  one  party,  but  a  legacy 
handed  down  from  all  the  ages,  with  their 
endless  parties,  almost  every  one  having  left 
its  mark,  more  or  less  distinctly,  upon  it  in  its 
passage  onward.  Men  of  the  most  opposed 
opinions,  some  directly  and  others  indirectly, 
have  exercised  an  influence  in  its  formation, 
and  many  who  would  not  have  accepted  it  as 
a  whole,  have  nevertheless  contributed  to  some 
of  its  details.  It  is  properly  an  agglomerate, 
unique  but  most  composite,  here  venerable  for 
Catholic  antiquity,  there  purely  Protestant 
and  again  comparatively  modern,  receiving  its 


XX  PREFACE. 


latest  modifications  tlirougli  Puritans,  Cove- 
nanters, Methodists,  and  the  various  sections 
of  the  existing  evangelical  school. 

The  attempt  would  be  simply  absurd,  to 
discuss  a  complex  system  within  the  limits  of 
a  small  volume.  But  it  may  be  possible, 
nevertheless,  to  discover  and  to  examine  care- 
fully what  constitutes,  in  these  modern  days, 
in  the  judgment  of  those  who  have  adopted  it, 
its  central  and  vital  distinction.  Evangelical 
writers,  preachers,  and  disciples,  are  in  the 
habit,  without  exception,  of  narrowing  the 
issue,  and  bringing  the  creed  to  a  single  test. 
That  test  is  the  doctrine  of  sacrifice,  the  sacri- 
fice of  Christ  on  the  cross,  the  atonement  made 
to  God  for  human  sin,  the  satisfaction  ren- 
dered to  Divine  Justice  by  the  shedding  of 
'Christ's  blood.  It  is  taught  that  Christ  stood 
in  the  room  of  men,  and  endured  the  punish- 
ment which  they  deserved,  and  that  God,  on 
this  ground,  but  only  on  this  ground,  is  now 
able  to  set  men  free,  and  to  receive  them  back 
to  His  favour.    In  modern  evangelical  speech, 


PEEFACE.  XXI 


this  is  the  gospel,  the  true  gospel,  the  one,  only 
gospel  of  God  to  the  world;  which  accepting,  a 
man  is  safe ;  which  rejecting,  he  is  eternally 
lost.  That  familiar  phrase, "  the  gospel,"  always 
in  the  same  fixed  sense,  is  so  constantly  pro- 
nounced from  the  press,  from  the  pulpit,  and 
in  private  society,  that  it  is  hardly  possible  to 
misapprehend  it.  Invariably  one  thing  is  meant, 
one  thing  chiefly,  almost  alone — the  expiation 
of  human  sin  by  Christ's  death,  and  the  divine 
pardon,  purchased  by  this  costly  means. 

The  following  pages  are  devoted  chiefly  to  a 
free  consideration  of  this  article,  in  several  of 
its  important  bearings,  and  if  there  be  found 
in  them  any  closer  approximation  to  truth,  or 
any  help  to  truth-seekers,  the  writer  will  have 
gained  his  best  reward. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INCARNATION — IN  TWO  SECTIONS. 

Section  First. — The  Idea  and  the  Fact : — Divine  Response  to  the 
Soul's  deepest  Want — Its  wide  Relations — Incarnation  and 
Miracles — Necessity  of  Anticipative  Record — The  Light  of 
Secular  History,  ....  Pp.  3-18 

Section  Second. — Sacrifice  in  Incarnation  : — God  Self-sacrificing — 
Limitations  of  Human  Medium — "Lamb  of  God" — Super- 
naturally  Provided — God  in  Christ  Unveiling  Himself — In- 
carnate, Unknown,  Rejected — Life  Sacrificed — "Accoi'ding 
to  Counsel  of  God"— A  Prey  to  Rage  and  Lust  of  Men — Divine 
Self-sacrifice  for  Sin Pp.  19-41 

CHAPTER  II. 

HUMAN  SIN— IN  TWO  SECTIONS. 

Section  First. — What  Sin  is,  and  the  Sense  of  Sin  : — Essential  Dis- 
tinction-Burden of  Universe — Radical  Difficulty  in  Specula- 
tion— Unrest  in  all  Earnest  Souls — Consciousness  of  Sin — Its 
Development — Legitimate  Result,        ,  .  Pp.  45-68 


XXIV  CONTENTS. 


Section  Second. — Eedemption  from  Sin  : — "  Way  of  Salvation  " — 
Adaptations  and  Subtlety — Ground  of  Forgiveness  —  Not 
Honouring  to  God — Sin,  not  Punishment,  greatest  Evil — 
Divine  Self-sacrifice  smites  Root  of  Sin — Gradual  and  Final 
Redemption,      .....  Pp.  69-73 


CHAPTER  III. 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS. 


Their  Sphere — Material  Laws — Not  Eternal  and  not  Necessary- 
Ordained  by  God — Spiritual  Laws  Immutable — In  Harmony 
with  Will  of  God — Their  Ground — Human  Laws — Need  Vin- 
dication and  Support — Self-sustaining  Law — Sin  and  Death 
• — Holiness  and  Life — Divine  Sacrifice — Destroys  Sin — Saves 
the  Soul,  .....  Pp.  77-98 

CHAPTER  IV. 

ETERNAL  JUSTICE. 

Opposite  Conceptions  of  Justice — Providence — Inequalities,  Real 
Equality — Mere  Justice — Not  in  God — A  Human  Notion — 
God  always  More  and  Better  than  Merely  Just  — Justice  and 
Mercy— Evil,  Not  of  God — Moral,  Physical  Evil — Ethical 
Nature  of  God  and  Man — Mercy  Loftier,  Holier  than  Justice 
—Inevitable  Doom  of  Sin— Triumph  of  Mercy,     Pp.  101-120 

CHAPTER  V. 

ATONEMENT  AND  SATISFACTION — IN  TWO  SECTIONS. 

Section  First. — Imagined  Necessity  of  Satisfaction  : — 1.  Law — But 
Penalty  inflicted — 2.  Justice — Never  Defrauded — No  Un- 
settled Claims — 3.  Moral  Government — Not  Dishonoured  or 
Overthrown — Its  Security,  Divine  Self-sacrifice,    Pp.  123-138 


CONTENTS.  XXV 


Section  Second. — Satisfaction  for  Sin  not  Possible: — 1.  The  Fact 
of  Sin;  2.  Its  Criminality;  3.  Its  Power  for  Evil  Unchange- 
able—Sin Destroyed  and  Forgiven — Divine  Anger — How  In- 
appeasable — Anger  and  Love  in  Cross — Destruction  of  Sin  in 
Soul— This,  Salvation,  .  .  .  .Pp.  139-152 

CHAPTER  VI. 

JUSTIFICATION  AND  IMPUTATION — IN  TWO  SECTIONS. 

Section  First. — Meaning  of  Terms  : — Science  of  Theology  and  other 
Sciences— Essentially  Different  Ground — Theological  Terms — 
Settled  by  Scripture — Words,  "Justify,"  &c. — Literal  Sense — 
Righten,  Set  Right — Examples — Non-Natural  Sense — Spirit  of 
Man,  Wrong — Needs  to  be  Set  Right — Proof  Passages — Justi- 
fication—Only  Thrice,  Used,     .  »  .      Pp.  155-175 

Section  Second.  —  Truths,  Answering  to  Terms  of  Scripture:  — 
Righteousness  Rightness — State  of  Right-en-ed-ness — Righten- 
ing-ness — The  Power,  Act,  Mode  of  Rightening —  Imputation 
— Rightness  Imputed  because  Real — Fact  Recognised — Thing 
Reckoned,  What  it  is,  never.  What  it  is  not— Imputation  In- 
evitable—  Instinctive — Figures  of  Speech — Judicial  Imputa- 
tion     Crime,    »  •  .  .  .Pp.  176-195 

CHAPTER  VII. 

SACRIFICE. 

fs  God  Essentially  Self-sacrificing  ? — Lesson  to  Universe— Sacrifi- 
cial Rite,  Universal — Esthetic  Gradation — Contrary  to  Facts 
— Animal  Sacrifices — Earliest  Form  of  Offering — Taking  of 
Animal  Life,  Revolting — In  Name  and  by  Command  of  God — 
1.  Provision  for  Human  Sustenance — 2.  Merciful  Protection 
to  Animal  Creation — Sacredness  of  Life — Worship  of   Life- 


XXVI  CONTENTS. 


giver — Surrender  back  of  His  own — Virtual  Self -surrender — 
3.  Silent  Confession  of  Life  Forfeited  and  of  Sin— Early  Re- 
volting Corruptions  of  Sacrificial  Rite,  .      Pp.  199-217 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

MOSAIC  ECONOMY — IN  TWO  SECTIONS. 

Section  First. — Its  Chief  Characteristic : — Religion  of  Blood — End- 
less Sacrifices — Rites  Simplified  and  Purified — Appeal  through 
Senses  to  Soul — Two  Ideas — Human  Sustenance  and  Divine 
Worship — Paschal  Lamb,  a  Supper — Also,  Act  of  Worship — 
No  Idea  of  Expiation — How  Blood,  Atonement  for  Soul — Blood 
and  Fat,  God's  Portion — Rest  for  Food — Kaphar,  'IXdaKOfiai, 
Atonement — Not  Expiation — Proof  Passages,         Pp.  221-242 

Section  Second.  —  Its  True  Meaning  and  Interpretation  : — Visible 
Punishments  and  Rewards  in  Old  Testament — Atonement  for 
Life,  not  Soul — System  of  Discipline  and  of  Worship — Not 
Scheme  of  Salvation — Training  of  Israelites — Old  Testament, 
Record  of  Spiritual  Truth  —  Special  Privileges  —  Salvation 
always  Common  to  World — Sacrifices  never  Ground  of  Pardon 
—  "  Purifying  of  Flesh  "  —  No  More — Anticipation  of  Death 
of  Christ  Impossible  —  "  I,  even  I,  am  He  that  Blotteth 
out,"  &c.,  .  ...      Pp.  243-269 

CHAPTER  IX. 

SACKIFICE  OF  CHRIST. 

Voluntary — "I  lay  down  My  Life" — Issue  Foreseen,  Willingly 
Encountered  —  Escape  without  Dishonour,  Impossible  —  Men, 
Sole  Agents  in  Crucifixion  —  Determinate  Foreknowledge  of 
God — Natural  Course  of  Events — Wholly,  a  Human  Crime — 
No  Sacrifice  by  Men  to  God  —  No  Divine,  Judicial  Arrange- 


CONTENTS.  XXVU 


ment — Two  Gods — Tri-unity  Destroyed — Substitution,  its 
Meaning — Figure,  not  Reality — Human  Notions,  transferred 
to  Mind  of  God— Natural  Sense  of  Scripture — Fictions  taken 
for  Facts— Perfect  Love,  in  Death  of  Christ — Human  Self-sac- 
rifice —  Noble  and  Ennobling  —  Ray  from  Heaven  —  Eternal 
Fountain  of  Pure  Generosity — God's  Sacrifice  for  Men — Con- 
quers Soul, Pp.  273-302 

CHAPTER  X. 

SACRIFICIAL  TERMS  AND  ALLUSIONS  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT — 
IN  THREE  SECTIONS. 

Section  First. — The  Epistles : — Written  by  Jews — Addressed,  First, 
to  Jews — Jewish  Phraseology  and  Imagery,  Inevitable — Expo- 
sition of  Passages — Beautiful,  Natural  Sense — Christ's  Death, 
and  Ancient  Sacrifices — Epistle  to  Hebrews— Typical  Language 
— Use  and  Abuse — Apostolic  Gospel,  .  .      Pp.  305-335 

Section  Second. — Acts  of  the  Apostles: — Early  History  of  Christianity 
— First  Christian  Sermon — Peter's  Gospel — Martyr  Stephen — 
Ethiopian  Eunuch — Cornelius — Saul  of  Tarsus,  His  Conversion, 
His  Ministry — Antioch,  Athens,  Miletiis,  Philippi — ''Believe 
on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  Thou  shalt  be  Saved,  and  Thy 
House," Pp.  336-355 

Section  Third. — The  Gospels:— Hostile  Criticism — Unsound  Basis 
— Sayings  and  Discourses  of  Jesus — How  Preserved  and  Trans- 
mitted—  Christ's  Soul,  their  Fountain — Immeasurable  Supe- 
riority— Early  Christian  Writings  —  Noblest  Heathen  Utter- 
ances— Exposition  of  Passages — No  Expiation  or  Satisfaction 
— Must  have  been,  if  True — Lord's  Prayer — Last  Supper — 
Calvary  —  After  Resurrection  —  Olivet  —  Christ's  Teaching 
Opposed  to  Satisfaction — Pharisee  and  Publican — Prodigal, 

Pp.  356-398 


XXVIU  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XL 

ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SATISFACTION — 
IN  TWO  SECTIONS. 

Section  First. — From  the  Apostolic  Age  to  that  of  Ansehn:— 
Foundation  in  Human  Nature — Ignorance  and  Fears — Early 
Christian  Writings — Repeat  Language  of  New  Testament — No 
Independent  Statement — Proof  Passages — Dr  Shedd's  Admis- 
sions— First  Idea,  Satisfaction  to  Satan — Irenseus — Origen — 
Abuse  of  Figures  the  Original  Root  of  Error — First  Explicit 
Statement — Athanasius — Augustin — Anselm,         Pp.  401-446 

Section  Second. — From  the  Age  of  Anselm  to  the  Present  Time : — 
Athanasius  and  Anselm — Second,  Deeper  Source  of  Error — 
Pride  of  Reason — Intellectual  Subtlety — False  Philosophy — 
Misapplication  of  Logic  —  Anselm's  Tractate,  Logical,  not 
Philosophical — Conclusion  False — Thomas  Acquinas — Luther 
— Secret  of  his  Power  —  Success  of  Evangelical  Churches  — 
Calvin,  Theologian  of  Reformation  —  Evangelical  Transcen- 
dentalism —  Essential  Relation  of  Divine  to  Human  —  God, 
Father  of  Souls — Loving,  Redeeming  Father,         Pp.  447-480 

Conclusion,  .  .  .  ,  .         Pp.  481-497 


CHAPTER  T. 


INCARNATION. 


Section  Fikst.— The  Idea  and  the  Fact. 
Section  Second.— Sacrifice  in  Incaenation. 


SECTION  FIRST. 

The  Idea  and  the  Fact — Divine  Eesponse  to  the  Soul's  deepest  Wan\> 
— Its  wide  Relations — Incarnation  and  Miracles — Necessity  of 
Anticipative  Record — The  Light  of  Secular  History. 

LIFE  and  light  belong  to  all  languages — words  of 
liappy  omen,  and  only  of  happy  omen,  to  all 
peoples  and  times.  Their  very  tone  is  stirring  and 
sunny,  and  the  things  are  brighter  and  more  enkind- 
ling than  the  words  which  denote  them.  They  are 
perhaps  the  very  commonest,  but  they  are  also  the 
most  inscrutable  of  all  our  notions ;  the  best  under- 
stood, but  also  the  least  understood  of  all  human 
things.  A  savage  leaps  with  joy  in  the  irrepressible 
consciousness  of  vigorous  life,  and  amidst  the  warmth 
and  beauty  of  noonday.  But  the  severest  student  of 
nature,  when  he  has  pushed  his  researches  to  the 
farthest  possible  limit,  is  forced  to  acknowledge  that 
life  and  light  are  each,  to  him,  an  unfathomable  mjs- 
tery.  He  has  observed,  arranged,  and  recorded  the 
phenomena  connected  with  both ;  he  has  discovered 
the  laws  which  regulate  the  phenomena  ;  he  has  even 
measured  the  inconceivable  speed  with  which  light 


INCARNATION. 


darts  through  space ;  but  what  light  is,  and  what  life 
is,  he  cannot  tell.  The  impenetrable  secret  abides, 
and  the  most  gifted  of  our  race,  in  presence  of  it,  can 
only  gaze  in  mute  astonishment. 

The  relations  of  life  and  light  are  as  well  under- 
stood, but  also  as  ill  understood,  as  the  things  them- 
selves. That  they  are  connected — beautifully,  essen- 
tially connected— is  certain,  and  many  of  the  forms 
of  their  connexion  are  familiar  to  us  ;  but  how  they 
are  connected  we  know  not.  The  root  and  ground  of 
their  relation,  the  middle  point  in  which  they  meet, 
and  from  which  they  act  and  re-act,  the  one  on  the 
other,  are  undiscoverable.  Life  and  light,  like  death 
and  darkness,  are  associated  indissolubly  in  thought, 
because  they  are  associated  constantly  in  fact.  We 
cannot  separate  life  from  light,  nor  light  from  life, 
without  an  instant  sense  of  incongruity  and  wrong. 
The  one  seems  to  be  the  true  complement  of  the 
other,  a  real  necessity  to  the  other.  In  the  lowest 
and  in  the  highest  modes  of  existence  alike,  both  are 
essential,  and  the  perfection  of  spiritual  being  is  in 
the  full,  beautiful  blending  and  interfusion  of  the 
two. 

The  wonderful  proem  to  the  fourth  gospel  overawes 
and  startles  us  with  sudden  openings  into  the  abys- 
mal secret  of  life  and  light,  and  into  their  primal, 
eternal  relations,  with  quick  flashes,  into  the  profound 
darkness,  quenched  almost  as  soon  as  they  are  struck 


INCARNATION. 


out.  "  In  the  beginning  was  the  Logos,  and  the 
Logos  was  with  God,"  essentially  related  to  God, 
eternally  connected  and  identified  with  God.  "  And 
the  Logos  was  God."  "  In  him  (the  Logos)  was  life" 
— no  abstraction,  no  mere  quality  of  being,  but  life — 
living,  unoriginated,  self-sustaining,  self-perpetuative 
power.  "  And  the  life"  (this  living  One)  "  was  the 
light  of  men."  "  The  true  Light,  which  lighteth  every 
man,  luas  coming  into  the  world" — at  the  fulness  of 
the  times,  he  was  actually  coming  into  the  world. 
"He  was  in  the  world" — before  this,  he  was,  and 
from  the  first,  he  had  always  been  in  the  world. 
"  And  the  world  was  made  by  him" — the  Eternal 
Logos  reigned  supreme  in  the  creation  and  formation 
of  all  things.  "  And  the  world  knew  him  not.  But 
as  many" — in  all  the  ages,  all  along — "  as  received 
him"  —  recognised  and  admitted  him  into  their 
hearts-  ihey  "  became  sons  of  God ;  born  not  of 
blood,  nor  of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of  the  will  of 
man,  but  of  God."  At  last,  in  the  fulness  of  the 
times,  "  the  Logos  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among 
us,  full  of  grace  and  truth;  and  we  beheld  his 
glory,  the  glory  as  of  the  only-begotten  of  the 
Father." 

The  divine  in  man,  the  true  inner  life  and  light  of 
his  soul,  not  a  poetical  exaggeration,  but  a  sacred 
reality,  is  recognised  by  all  theological  schools.  It  is 
taught  that  the  Great  Father  of  the  spirit,  in  its  very 


INCARNATION. 


nature  and  structure,  has  impressed  His  own  likeness 
upon  it,  and  left  discoverable  tokens  of  a  spiritual, 
superhuman  descent.  Beyond  this,  the  indwelling  of 
God,  at  least  in  some  human  minds,  and  His  direct 
action  upon  them,  as  a  secret,  illuminating,  purifying, 
and  guiding  Spirit,  are  well  understood  points  of  the 
common  faith.  Manifestly  it  must  be  a  question  of 
degree,  not  of  kind,  how  many  or  how  few  the  tokens 
of  alliance  with  the  divine  in  any  soul  may  be,  or  how 
far  into  the  human  in  any  case  the  divine  element 
may  penetrate.  But  the  transition  is  immeasurable, 
from  such  connexion  between  the  created  and  the 
creating  Spirit,  to  the  idea  of  Incarnation.  Once, 
only  once,  in  all  time,  it  is  believed,  very  God  so  en- 
tered into  a  human  soul,  so  possessed  and  filled  all  its 
capacities,  and  so  united  and  identified  Himself  with 
its  being,  that  it  was  not,  and  never  was,  merely 
human,  but  always  Divine-human,  a  true  Incarnation, 
under  no  conditions,  but  those  necessary  ones  which 
must  always  limit  the  finite,  whether  as  a  receptacle 
or  as  a  manifestation  of  the  infinite. 

Jesus  Christ  was  a  true  man,  in  all  essential  re- 
spects, like  other  men.  His  soul  was  a  true  human 
soul,  endowed  with  all  the  ordinary  susceptibilities, 
tendencies,  and  powers  of  the  common  nature.  Body 
and  soul,  he  was  man.  That  is  a  historical  fact, 
which  no  fair  criticism  and  no  candid  reasonings  have 
yet  touched.     But  it  is  believed  that  ha  was  a  divine 


INCARNATION. 


man,  tlie  one,  sole  Incarnation  of  divinity  that  ever 
flighted  on  this  earth.  The  fact,  in  all  its  profound 
meaning,  is  necessarily  inexplicable,  and  the  most 
wise  and  the  most  pious  will  be  the  farthest  removed 
from  presumptuous  dogmatism  on  such  a  subject. 
The  divine  in  man,  in  any  sense,  is  mysterious,  over- 
whelming, and,  in  its  full  truth,  incomprehensible. 
But  God-man,  in  the  sense  of  Incarnation,  is  altoge- 
ther so  stupendous,  that  we  can  only  bow  down  and 
worship  in  presence  of  a  mystery  which  we  are  utterly 
unable  to  compass  in  thought. 

At  the  same  time,  this  at  least  is  patent  and  indis- 
putable, that  there  could  be,  in  the  Incarnate,  no 
blending  or  confusing  or  interchanging  of  the  divine 
and  the  human.  The  human  could  never  be  more 
than  human;  the  divine  could  never  be  less  than 
divine.  The  two  natures  must  ever  have  been  per- 
fectly distinct ;  but  from  their  incomprehensible  union 
and  interpenetration,  their  action  and  interaction,  there 
resulted  a  real  life  on  this  earth  such  as  had  never 
otherwise  been  possible.  Hence,  in  that  life,  some- 
times the  merely  human  and  sometimes  the  properly 
divine  is  alone  visible,  and  sometimes  the  manifesta- 
tion is  complex,  so  that  we  are  unable  to  distinguish 
where  the  human  terminates,  and  where  the  divine 
commences.  But  all  in  all,  this  is  the  sum,  if  we  may 
dare  to  put  it  into  words,  that  the  human  soul  of 
Jesus  Christ  was  so  possessed  and  inhabited  by  very 


INCARNATION. 


God,  SO  pervaded,  and  interpenetrated,  and  guided, 
and  moved  by  the  divine,  that  he  alone  of  all  in 
human  form  could  say,  and,  in  a  sense,  whose  full 
depth  of  meaning  we  cannot  reach,  "  He  that  hath 
seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father." 

I  venture  to  suppose  that  too  little  is  made  of  this 
central  truth,  and  that  much  of  its  meaning  and  many 
of  its  very  vital  bearings  are  not  understood,  or  not 
appreciated. 

Amidst  the  blundering  legends,  and  myths,  and 
fables,  and  allegories,  and  designed  fictions,  with 
which  all  lands  and  all  ages  have  abounded,  and  which 
have  been  largely  accepted  by  an  indiscriminating 
and  a  greedy  credulity,  there  has  been  one,  but  there 
has  been  only  one,  true  Incarnation.  The  miserable 
caricatures  of  the  sacred  reality,  if  they  have  done 
nothing  else,  have  shown  this  at  least,  the  hunger 
gnawing  at  the  heart  of  the  world,  the  irrepressible 
longing  for  the  divine,  and  even  the  felt,  mysterious 
affinity  with  the  divine,  which  has  so  strangely  craved 
and  struggled  for  a  nearer  approximation,  for  some- 
thing of  an  actual,  literal  fellowship  and  union.  The 
veiled  shrine  of  Egypt,  the  sacred  fire  of  Persia,  the 
Avatars,  and  Grand  Llamas,  and  Absorptions,  and 
Nirvanas  of  Brahminism  and  Bhuddism,  the  Pyth- 
onic  possessions,  the  Sibylline  inspirations,  and  all 
the  sacred  mysteries  of  Greece  and  Kome,  Popish 
transubstantiation  and  Mariolatry,  the  wild  visions  of 


INCARNATION. 


Cliristian  mystics,  millennial  vagaries,  and  all  the  ridi- 
culous absurdities  of  modern  spiritualism,  utter  one 
unmistakable  voice.  The  want  of  the  human  soul  in 
its  deepest  depths,  through  all  ages,  has  been  God,  the 
living  God.  Unintelligently,  wildly,  grossly,  madly 
the  want  may  have  been  proclaimed,  but  at  least  its 
existence  and  its  depth  have  been  proved  beyond  all 
doubt.  The  sense  of  some  unnatural  estrangement 
and  isolation,  it  knows  not  what,  but  as  if  its  higher 
self  had  been  cut  off  from  it,  has  for  ever  burdened 
the  spirit  of  man.  In  ten  thousand  various  forms  and 
ways,  universal  humanity  has  laboured  to  have  some 
unknown  severed  link  reattached,  some  secret,  long 
closed  communication  opened  up  again.  It  has  ever 
longed  to  come  nearer  to  the  divine,  and  to  bring  the 
divine  nearer  to  it,  to  touch,  as  with  its  very  hand, 
the  Father  above,  and  to  be  touched  by  Him,  to  look 
upon  the  very  face  of  God,  to  hear  the  divine  voice, 
and  to  commimicate  nearly  and  directly  with  the  un- 
seen. 

Once  for  all,  most  mercifully  and  wondrously,  a 
response  from  above  was  given  to  the  wild,  vague, 
ill-understood,  almost  unconscious  cravings  of  the 
human  heart.  "  The  Eternal  Logos  "  took  posses- 
sion of  a  human  soul  in  a  human  body,  and  made 
it  the  medium  1  through  which  influence  from  Above 
should  flow  down  on  the  world. 

^  See  note,  p.  27. 


10  INCARNATION. 


It  is  almost  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  wide  re- 
lations of  this  divine  mystery.  More  or  less  it  must 
touch  everything  which  belongs  to  the  sphere  of  revela- 
tion. Perhaps  it  is  the  real,  though  not  the  ostensible 
issue,  even  in  some  of  the  religious  questions  which  are 
troubling  the  present  age.  He,  for  example,  who  has 
been  constrained,  by  the  overwhelming  force  of  the 
evidence,  to  accept  the  Incarnation,  is  already  recon- 
ciled to  the  idea  of  the  direct  intervention  of  God  in 
the  affairs  of  men.  JSTo  so-called  miracle  can  ever 
transcend  this  mystery  of  mysteries.  He  may  not, 
must  not,  hesitate  to  bring  the  severest  criticism  to 
bear  on  whatever  claims  to  be  a  departure  from  the 
ordinary  course  of  nature.  He  may  be  convinced, 
besides,  of  the  high  probability,  that  the  very  fact  of 
true  miracles  might  lead  to  the  invention  and  multi- 
plication of  fictitious  counterfeits.  But  in  presence 
of  the  one  stupendous  contravention  of  the  order  of 
nature,  which  he  thoroughly  believes,  he  will  hold 
himself  prepared,  on  good  evidence,  as  the  meetest 
and  most  reasonable  thing,  to  admit  the  reality  of 
supernatural  phenomena,  immediately  owing  to  Al- 
mighty agency. 

In  like  manner,  he  who  has  truly  recognised  the 
God-man  can  never  regard  this  as  an  isolated,  dis- 
jointed phenomenon,  having  no  dependence  on,  and 
no  connexion  with,  previous  history.  He  must  feel, 
on  the  contrary,  that  this  can  only  have  been  the 


INCARNATION.  11 


culmination  and  the  climax  of  a  foregoing  series  of 
divine  operations  and  agencies,  even  as  lie  believes 
it  to  be  the  root  and  the  nucleus  of  all  the  new  and 
grand  developments  which  make  up  the  history  of 
Christianity.  He  is  compelled,  by  the  very  nature 
of  the  case,  to  connect  it  with  the  past.  Had  there 
been  nothing  to  guide  and  help  him  in  this  direc- 
tion, he  must,  even  then,  have  looked  back  to  dis- 
cover, if  it  were  possible,  how  this  extraordinary 
divine  intervention  linked  itself  with  the  early  his- 
tory of  man.  He  could  not  but  be  convinced,  even 
in  the  absence  of  actual  confirmation,  that  there 
must  have  been  anticipations,  premonitions,  prepara- 
tions, preparations  worthy  of  God,  for  an  event  so 
great  and  fraught  with  such  consequences  to  hu- 
manity. The  Old  Testament,  in  this  view,  becomes 
to  him  a  necessity.  Apart  from  this,  and  on  quite 
other  grounds,  he  finds  God  in  that  holy  record,  the 
very  word  and  voice  of  God,  even  as  he  finds  them 
in  the  New  Testament.  He  is  brought  face  to  face, 
in  the  one  as  in  the  other,  with  truth — eternal,  uni- 
versal truth — truth  belonging  alike  to  all  peoples 
and  to  all  times.  There,  also,  he  comes  upon  facts 
and  experiences  of  human  nature,  which  are  as  wide 
as  the  race,  and  as  enduring  and  unchanging  as  the 
highest  verities  and  uses  of  religion.  But,  had  there 
been  none  of  all  this,  the  Old  Testament  offers  to 
him  the  very  thing  which,  with  the  Incarnation  be- 


12  INCARNATION. 


fore  him,  he  most  needed  and  desired,  for  it  professes 
to  be  the  record  of  the  movements  of  the  Most  High, 
introductory  and  preparatory  to  the  final  unveiling 
of  Himself. 

All  the  while,  he  can  freely  admit  a  distinction 
between  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New  Testament 
writings.  He  may  see  no  cause  to  deny  that  the 
former  were  never,  like  the  latter,  given  by  God 
Himself  to  the  whole  world,  and  that  what  was  ex- 
pressly communicated  to  a  single,  select  people,  may 
have  a  meaning  for  them,  and  be  of  authority  with 
them,  in  a  way  which  does  not  apply  beyond  them. 
Moreover,  he  is  not  ignorant  that  three  thousand 
years  or  more  have  elapsed  since  the  earlier  portions 
of  the  Old  Testament  were  written  down,  and  that, 
in  this  interval,  they  must  have  passed  through 
mjnriads  of  hands,  and  been  transcribed  myriads  of 
times,  and  must  inevitably  have  undergone  changes 
— minute,  perhaps  important;  changes  accidental, 
perhaps  designed ;  owing  to  good,  perhaps  bad  in- 
tention. And,  finally,  he  may  not  be  able  to  deny 
the  existence  of  apparent  inaccuracies  in  the  Old 
Testament,  or  even  of  what  seem  to  be  contradic- 
tions— things,  at  all  events,  which  have  not  yet  been 
satisfactorily  explained.  But  with  all  this,  he  can 
calmly  rest  in  the  divine  inspiration  of  the  ancient 
Scriptures,  and  find  in  them  themselves  their  own 
highest   evidence.      Whoever  may  lightly  esteem 


INCARNATION.  13 


these  holy  records,  to  him  they  are  unspeakably 
precious  on  the  highest  of  all  grounds,  and  because, 
independently  of  this,  they  marvellously  fill  up  to 
him  a  blank  in  sacred  history  which,  unfilled,  had 
disturbed  his  very  faith  in  God. 

The  mystery  of  Incarnation  had  been  a  thousand 
times  more  bewildering  than  it  is,  if  it  had  started 
forth  suddenly,  sharply,  unaccountably,  out  of  utter 
darkness  and  silence,  and  if  no  token,  no  hint,  had 
been  given  of  it  to  the  world.  It  had  been  stagger- 
ing, even  revolting  to  reason,  if  God,  having  a  pur- 
pose so  grand  to  carry  out,  and  bearing  so  mightily 
on  the  destiny  of  man,  had  kept  it  a  dark  secret 
till  the  very  moment  of  its  disclosure.  The  world 
needed  to  be  prepared  for  it.  It  is  simply  in  har- 
mony with  all  which  might  have  been  presupposed 
that  the  Great  Being  should  have  given  early  in- 
timations of  His  wondrous  design,  and  that  a  track 
of  light,  indicating  the  divine  pathway  from  the 
previous  ages  on  to  the  advent  of  Christ,  should 
have  been  at  least  partially  visible.  The  selection 
of  a  peculiar  race,  and  of  a  particular  family,  the 
series  of  preliminary  arrangements,  of  special,  typi- 
cal institutions,  and  of  repeated  predictive  anticipa- 
tions— all  do  not  contradict,  but  beautifully  fall  in 
with  what  might  have  been  looked  for.  The  earliest 
of  the  Old  Testament  writings  are  precious,  as  the 
religious  literature  of  a  period  and  of  races,  of  which 


14  INCAENATION. 


no  other  monument  is  extant.  But  they  are  yet 
more  precious  still,  because  they  expose  the  nascent 
unfolding  and  the  successive  growth  of  a  grand 
divine  idea,  bearing  on  the  highest  destiny  of  man. 
With  their  aid,  we  can  go  back  along  the  line  of 
preliminary  preparations,  and  are  able  to  follow  it 
up,  till  it  terminates  in  the  fulness  of  the  times,  and 
in  the  coming  of  the  promised  Messiah ! 

The  Incarnation  is  the  great,  central  sun  of  reve- 
lation ;  but  it  is,  also,  the  beating  heart,  the  inner 
soul  of  secular,  human  history.  Light  and  life 
stream  from  this  source,  through  the  dreary  and 
darkened  annals  of  the  world.  A  purpose  of  uncreated 
wisdom  and  of  infinite  love  is  uttered  forth  in  the 
majestic  eloquence  of  this  fact.  Like  a  bright,  soli- 
tary star,  gleaming  in  the  midnight  sky,  it  tells  that 
there  is  light  above,  if  all  below  and  around  be  dark. 
Since  man  is  so  near  to  his  God,  and  so  dear,  as  the 
Incarnation  proves  him  to  be,  his  course  can  be  no 
aimless  pageant,  and  he  can  be  no  poor  player, 
strutting,  for  a  brief  hour,  on  a  mimic  stage,  and 
then  vanishing  for  ever,  originating  in  no  sublime 
intention,  and  answering  no  god-like  end.  The 
heart  often  asks,  in  deep  perplexity — is  compelled 
by  the  agony  of  darkness  to  ask — "  What  of  all  the 
peoples  that  have  figured  so  largely,  in  the  ages  gone 
by,  with  their  wars,  their  commerce,  and  their  civili- 
sation, their  arts  and  their  sciences,  their  learning. 


INCARNATION.  15 


tlieir  literature,  tlieir  philosophy,  and  their  reli- 
gion ? '"  Have  they  not  perished  utterly,  as  if  they 
had  never  existed?  Have  they  not  been  remorse- 
lessly ingulfed  in  the  fathomless  immensity,  leav- 
ing no  trace,  or  next  to  none,  of  any  purpose  of 
their  being,  or  of  any  end  they  have  served  ?  As  for 
the  existing  populations  of  this  teeming  world,  are 
not  they  also  changing,  and  passing  and  dropping 
into  o])livion  ?  And  shall  not  the  races,  who  may 
yet  cover  the  globe,  and  their  achievements,  and 
their  history,  ere  long  be  as  those  who  preceded 
them,  ingulfed  and  forgotten,  as  if  they  had  never 
been  ?  "0  Grod  !  wherefore  hast  thou  made  all  men 
in  vain  ?  " 

The  mystery  of  Incarnation  invests  the  human 
races,  and  their  movements,  and  their  annals,  with 
a  profound  interest,  and  with  an  infinite  significance. 
It  streams  with  light  out  of  the  darkness  on  all 
which  preceded  and  on  all  which  has  followed  it. 
If  man  l)e  near  and  dear  to  his  invisible  Father, 
that  Father  must  ever  have,  and  must  ever  have 
had,  l)eneficent  designs  to  accomplish  in  his  behalf 
— however  limited  our  insight  into  them  may  be. 
The  scene,  on  which  the  Incarnate  appeared,  can 
be  meant  only  for  revealing,  on  a  grand  scale,  the 
highest  purposes  of  power  and  of  love.  If  man,  on 
his  side,  and  in  his  blundering,  perverse,  wicked 
way,  has,  through  all  the.  ages,  and  not  wholly  in 


16  INCARNATION. 


vain,  been  struggling  up  towards  God,  it  is  far 
more  true,  on  the  other  side,  that  God,  with  divine 
serenity  and  with  loving  persistencj^,  has  been  ever 
moving  down  towards  man,  nearer  and  nearer,  as 
the  ages  revolved,  until  at  last,  in  the  fulness  of 
the  times,  in  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth,  He  literally 
and  really  dwelt  with  men  ujion  the  earth. 

The  course  of  this  world  from  the  beginning,  and 
in  all  its  parts,  though  we  may  not  in  the  least  be 
able  to  discern  either  the  steps  or  the  results — the 
course  of  this  world,  with  all  its  countless  races,  and 
their  manifold  evolutions  and  histories,  must  have 
been  a  divine  discipline  and  a  progress ;  a  discipline 
arranged  with  infinite  wisdom,  and  administered  in 
infinite  love;  a  progress,  however  opposed  and  ob- 
structed, real  and  grand — though  it  have  seemed  not 
so  to  us — towards  a  mighty  and  blessed  issue.  The 
Incarnation  was  both  an  utterance  and  a  prophetic 
sign ;  a  mighty  utterance  in  itself,  bu-t  a  sign  of  im- 
measurably more  than  it  uttered,  betokening  in  a 
way  not  to  be  gainsaid  that  there  was  nothing,  abso- 
lutely nothing,  within  the  range  of  possibility,  con- 
sistency, and  rectitude  which  the  Almighty  would 
not  do  for  man.  With  profound  awe  we  meditate 
the  marvellous  intervention  of  Heaven,  and  thought 
deepens  into  an  assured  though  reverent  and  awe- 
struck faith,  that  the  Incarnation  was  not  a  sudden 
extravagance  of  divine  compassion,  having  no  na- 


INCARNATIONS.  17 


tural  antecedents,  and  no  necessary  consequents, — not 
an  unaccountable  caprice,  and  not  a  solitary  act  of 
mere  arbitrary  wilfulness,  on  which  no  dependence 
could  be  placed,  and  the  like  of  which  might  never 
occur  again.  It  must  have  been,  it  was,  a  deliberate, 
a  majestic,  an  awful  unveiling  of  the  essential,  eternal 
nature  of  the  Great  Being,  announcing  to  the  uni- 
verse, and  to  all  time,  that  that  nature  was  love, 
illimitable,  self-sacrificing,  pure  love,  and  laying  a 
foundation  for  such  trust  in  the  Divine  Father  as 
had  otherwise  been  impossible.  It  is  carried  home 
to  the  depths  of  the  soul  with  irresistible  force  that, 
in  spite  of  all  seeming,  the  very  best  and  the  very 
utmost  possible  must  ever  have  been  done,  must 
now  be  doing,  and  must  continue  to  be  done  by  the 
Almighty  for  the  race  of  man,  in  consistency  with 
all  the  interests  and  claims  of  the  universe.  The 
short,  the  instinctive  logic  of  the  conscience  and  the 
heart  leads  us  to  the  conclusion,  that  if  the  Great 
God,  in  very  truth,  incarnated  Himself  in  the  nature 
of  man,  that  nature  must  be  very  dear  to  Him — 
unless,  indeed,  we  could  persuade  ourselves  that  the 
whole  was  a  mere  pretence,  or,  at  best,  only  the  tem- 
porary outburst  of  a  vehement  but  transient  im- 
pulse. But  it  was,  it  could  be  no  pretence,  and  no 
impetuous,  momentary  effervescence:  it  sprang,  it 
must  have  sprung,  from  a  profound,  eternal  affection 
of  the  uncreated  soul,  which  though  manifested  tran- 


IS  INCARNATION. 


ecendently  in  one  act,  had  ever  commanded,  and  is 
ever  cc.nnmanding,  all  the  resources  of  illimital)le 
wisdom  and  power.  We  may  not  have  made  too 
much  of  the  cross  ;  hut  there  is  ground  to  think  that 
we  have  made  too  little  of  the  earlier  fact,  wldch  in- 
vests the  cross  with  all  its  mysterious  significance, 
and  encircles  it  with  all  its  terrihle  glory.  We  are 
in  danger  of  losing  sight  of  God  in  the  medium  i 
through  which  lie  uttered  Himself — in  danger  of 
forgetting  that  it  was  really  God,  no  less,  who  made 
the  sacrifice  which  was  needed  for  our  redemption, 
and  that  he,  on  whom  the  pain  and  the  shame  of 
the  cross  descended,  was  veiily  the  God  man,  a  true, 
a  stupendous  Incarnation  of  the  divine. 
^  See  note,  p.  27. 


SECTION  SECOND. 

Sacrifice  in  Incarnation  —  God  Self-sacrificing  —  Limitations  of 
Human  Medium — "  Larnb  of  God" — Supernaturally  Provided 
— God  in  Christ  Unveiling  Himself — Incarnate,  Unknown,  Ke- 
jected — Life  Sacrificed — "  According  to  Counsel  of  God  " — A 
Prey  to  the  Rage  and  Lust  of  Men — Divine  Self-sacrifice  for  Sin. 

THE  root  of  the  idea  of  the  divine  sacrifice,  as  it 
presents  itself  in  the  New  Testament,  lies  in  In- 
carnation. Throughout,  quite  habitually,  the  impres- 
sion is  conveyed  to  every  candid  reader  that  God  was 
giving  up  something  very  dear  to  Him,  was  making  a 
sacrifice,  an  immense  sacrifice  for  the  world.  "  God 
so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his  only  begotten 
Son.''  "  God  commendeth  his  love  towards  us,  in 
that  while  we  were  yet  sinners  Christ  died  for  us." 
"  Herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that  he 
loved  us,  and  sent  his  Son  to  be  the  propitiation  for 
our  sins."  It  is  God's  love  and  God's  sacrifice  that 
are  ever  put  before  us.  It  is  the  strength  of  God's 
love  that  is  measured  by  what  it  prompted  Him  to 
sacrifice.     It  is  He  who  is  represented  as  giving  up, 


20  INCARNATION. 


sui rendering,  sacrificing  so  much,  that  it  is  argued, 
"  herein  is  k)ve,"  the  love  of  God. 

In  the  propliecies  of  the  Old  Testament  the  seer, 
projecting  his  mind  far  into  the  ages,  hears  the 
Messiah  expound  his  own  mission,  "  Sacrifice  and 
offering  thou  wouldst  not,  but  a  body  hast  thou  pre- 
pared me."  In  the  room  of  the  old  sacrifices  some- 
thing was  to  be  transacted,  not  by  men,  but  by  God. 
There  was  to  be  the  preparation  of  a  human  body, 
the  assumption  of  a  human  form — an  Incarnation. 
"  In  burnt-offering  and  sacrifices  for  sin  thou  hast 
had  no  pleasure.  Then  said  I,  Lo,  I  come  to  do  thy 
will,  0  my  God."  The  rites  of  the  law  of  Moses 
were  to  be  abolished,  and  in  their  place  a  totally  new 
order  was  to  arise.  A  Messiah,  veiling  divinity  in 
the  form  of  man,  was  to  come  forth,  to  serve,  not  to 
command,  and  to  live  a  life  of  obedience  and  sub- 
mission. 

There  is  something  almost  blasphemous  in  the 
language  we  have  been  employing.  Strictly  speak- 
ing, it  is  self-contradictory,  and  involves  a  clear  im- 
possibility. It  must  be  wholly  figurative,  and  must 
demand  for  its  just  interpretation  the  utmost  rever- 
ence and  modesty.  God  is  essentially  immutable — 
can  lose  nothing  and  suffer  nothing.  From  ever- 
lasting to  everlasting,  He  is  the  same, — "  The 
Father  of  lights,  without  variableness  or  shadow  of 
turning."      Nothing    can    be   added    to   Him,    and 


INCARNATION-.  21 


nothing  can  be  taken  from  Him.  We  are  wont  to 
speak  of  God  descending  to  this  earth,  in  order  to 
take  on  Himself  our  nature,  and  again  ascending 
up  where  He  was  before.  But  we  are  not  ignorant, 
all  the  while,  that  change  of  place  is  impossible  to 
a  Being  who  is,  essentially,  everywhere,  at  every 
moment.  We  speak  of  God  stooping  down,  laying 
aside  His  glory,  divesting  and  again  investing  Him- 
self. But  we  know  that,  literally,  it  is  all  impos- 
sible. It  is  figure,  not  reality ;  but  there  is  an  idea, 
nevertheless,  underneath  the  figure,  and  an  idea 
which  is  both  true  and  grand.  We  are  obliged  to 
employ  language  which  is  literally  untrue ,  we  can 
employ  none  other,  but  we  have  a  true  meaning  to 
convey  by  the  use  of  the  language.  God  is  essen- 
tially for  ever  the  same,  but  divine  manifestations 
are  endless  and  various.  Unchangeable  in  Himself, 
God  is  specially  manifested  here,  but  not  there ; 
in  one  form  here,  in  another  there ;  in  certain 
aspects  of  His  nature  here,  in  certain  other  aspects 
there.  The  flower,  the  star,  the  mountain,  the 
ocean,  the  living  animal,  the  soul  of  man,  are  so 
many  distinct  manifestations  of  God.  All  utter 
truth  concerning  Him  who  created  them,  but  each 
a  different  shade  of  truth ^  whilst  Himself  is  ever 
the  same,  unchanged  amidst  all  these  varieties  of 
utterance,  and  unchangable. 

The  Incarnation  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus  tran- 


INCARNATION. 


scends  all  possible  analogies  and  illustrations.  It  is 
alone.  There  can  be  no  likeness  of  it,  except  a 
repetition  of  itself.  We  cannot  explain  it,  cannot 
comprehend  it,  but  we  believe  it,  and  have  ample 
ground  for  believing  that  it  must  be  true.  And 
more  than  this,  there  is  even  light  for  our  poor 
vision  to  guide,  so  far,  into  the  darkness  which 
surrounds  this  profound  mystery.  We  are  able  to 
assert,  for  example,  and,  in  some  available  degree, 
to  understand  when  we  assert,  that  in  the  Incarna- 
tion, itself  alone,  in  the  mere  fact  separated  from 
all  its  accessories,  the  Great  God  did  the  nearest 
thing  possible  to  making  a  personal  sacrifice,  for 
behoof  of  His  creatures.  He  identified  Himself 
with  an  inferior  nature,  and  made  it  His,  in  a 
sense,  true  only  that  once  and  never  approached 
in  a  single  instance  besides.  All  the  old  sacrifices 
had  been  made  by  men  to  God ;  but  this,  whatever 
of  the  nature  of  sacrifice  there  was  in  it,  was  made 
by  God  for  men.  The  only  thing  coming  under 
the  name  of  sacrifice,  which  was  possible  to  Him, 
the  Great  God  did.  He  took  into  union  with 
Himself  a  nature  which  was  capable  of  suffering, 
and  change,  and  loss ;  He  dwelt  mysteriously,  in- 
comprehensibly in  that  nature,  and  He  possessed 
and  pervaded  it  as  His  own.  To  our  conceptions, 
when  God  entered'  into  the  soul  of  Jesus,  when 
He  united  Himself  with  it,  when  He  spoke  through 


INCARNATION.  23 


it  and  acted  from  it,  forth  upon  the  world  of  men, 
He  thus  far,  literally  and  truly,  sacrificed  Himself ; 
that  is  to  say,  in  this  regard,  and  for  the  time, 
He  actually  submitted  to  conditions,  to  certain 
inevitable  conditions.  As  God  in  man,  though  only 
in  this  relation  and  aspect.  He  limited  Himself, 
necessarily  limited  Himself,  to  the  kind  and  the 
degree  of  manifestation  which  were  possible  through 
a  human  medium,  God's  sacrifice  for  the  world 
was  not  a  fiction  but  a  reality. 

The  supernatural  birth  of  Jesus  exhibits,  in  a 
manner  altogether  extraordinary,  both  the  reality 
and  the  solitary  grandeur  of  the  divine  sacrifice. 
Had  the  Messiah  appeared  in  the  common  line  of 
succession,  among  human  births,  like  any  other 
unit  of  the  race,  his  life  had  then  been,  as  all 
others  were  and  are,  a  natural  necessity,  irrespec- 
tive of  any  purpose  which  might  be  served  by  it, 
however  exalted.  That  life  had  then  been  due  to 
the  race  from  which  he  sprang,  due  to  the  laws  of 
nature,  in  obedience  to  which  it  had  and  must 
have  originated,  and  due  to  the  order  of  provi- 
dence, which  must  have  included  it  in  the  sum  of 
the  liuman  population,  and  which  could  not  be 
contravened.  The  fact  was  wondrously  and  beauti- 
fully, quite  otherwise.  The  life  of  Jesus  was  not 
owing  to  any  law  of  natural  succession  or  to  any 
fixed  series  of  antecedents  and  consequents.     There 


24  INCARNATION. 


was  no  necessity  in  nature  or  in  common  provi- 
dence, no  obligation  from  without,  of  any  kind, 
whicli  made  it  imperative,  that  he  should  appear 
among  men  at  all.  There  was  absolutely  no  reason 
whatever,  for  his  human  existence,  except  that 
God  had  a  special  purpose  to  serve  by  it,  and 
therefore,  but  only  therefore,  originated  it.  That 
existence  was  wholly  out  of  the  natural  line  of 
events,  wholly  supplemental  and  additional,  not  a 
link  in  a  chain,  but  a  new,  a  solitary,  an  un- 
paralleled insertion  into  the  sum  of  earthly  being, 
standing  wholly  by  itself,  without  antecedent  and 
without  consequent.  Had  there  been  no  special 
divine  purpose,  Jesus  not  only  might  never  have 
lived,  but  most  certainly  never  could  have  lived. 
He  was  introduced  among  men  for  the  very  pur- 
pose of  being,  from  first  to  last,  a  sacrifice  for  the 
w^orld,  and  nothing  else.  He  existed  for  this  sole 
end,  that  he  might  give  himself  up,  and  might 
be  given  up  by  God  for  men,  and  exce^Dt  for  this 
he  had  never  existed  at  all. 

In  simple  literal  truth,  God  made  the  sacrifice 
which  was  needed  for  the  world — though,  all  the 
while,  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  human  will 
of  Jesus.  In  His  wise  love,  God  added  this  true 
man,  body  and  soul,  to  the  sum  of  the  earth's 
natural  population.  God  so  entered  into,  as  to 
identify  Himself  with  this  spotless  Being ;  entered 


INCARNATION.  25 


SO  far,  necessarily,  only  so  far  as  it  was  possible 
for  a  human  medium  i  to  contain  and  to  reveal 
His  nature.  But  so  really  and  so  thoroughly  did 
God  identify  Himself  with  the  man  of  Nazareth, 
that  Jesus  was  always  from  the  first  in  immediate, 
though  incomprehensible  union  with  Him, — the 
God-man.  A  stupendous  act  of  pure  self-abase- 
ment and  self-sacrifice  on  the  part  of  the  Great 
God,  was  done  in  the  sight  of  all  nations  and 
ages  ;  a  true  Incarnation,  a  descent  of  the  divine 
into  the  human,  stood  revealed  in  the  person  of 
the  Redeemer  of  men. 

The  purpose  of  majestic  benignity  was  so  manifest 
in  the  act,  that  the  wonder  is  it  could  be  misappre- 
hended. Men  were  to  understand,  as  they  never 
otherwise  could  have  understood,  what  their  invisible 
Father  really  was,  and  how  infinitely  He  loved  them, 
even  in  their  sins.  They  were  to  learn,  in  a  way  in- 
expressibly subduing,  that  there  was  nothing  which 
He  was  not  prepared  to  do,  in  order  that  they  might 
be  reconciled  and  redeemed.  They  were  to  behold, 
in  a  human  impersonation,  an  image  of  divine 
majesty,  purity,  wisdom,  and  love,  and  be  drawn  to 
it  in  spite  of  themselves.  They  had  forsaken  God, 
but  God  shall  stoop  to  go  after  them.  Separation 
from  Him  was  perdition.  His  restored  ]3i'^sence 
alone,  freely  recognised  and  welcomed  once  more  by 

^  See  note,  page  27. 


26  INCARNATION. 


them,  could  bring  back  life  to  their  deserted  and 
dying  natures.  Hence,  and  only  hence,  the  Great 
God  meekly  put  Himself  before  men,  and  in  a  hum- 
ble form,  came  near  to  their  homes  and  to  their  souls, 
as  near  as  it  was  possible  for  Him  to  come.  In 
one  like  themselves  He  came  near,  in  one  who  went 
in  and  out  among  them,  one  who  had  human 
thoughts  and  human  ways,  human  sympathies  and 
feelings,  human  experiences  like  theirs.  He  came. 
Only  life  can  kindle  life.  The  Life,  the  one  source 
of  all  life  in  the  universe,  the  eternally  living  Being, 
came  near  to  a  dead  world,  to  touch  it,  to  breathe 
upon  it,  to  infuse  Himself  into  it,  and  to  quicken  it 
for  ever.  It  was  the  divine  in  Jesus  that  was  power 
over  the  souls  of  men  while  He  lived  on  earth.  It 
is  the  divine  in  Jesus,  that  now  is,  and  that  shall 
continue  to  be  power  over  the  souls  of  men.  Our 
deepest  need  is  God,  our  ruin,  our  perdition  is 
disseverance  from  God,  our  redemption  is  the  re- 
indwelling  of  God  in  our  nature.  Therefore  it  was 
that  our  Father  humbled  Himself,  sacrificed  Him- 
self, to  come  near  to  us  in  Christ,  to  let  us  see, 
as  with  our  very  bodily  eyes,  and  to  make  us  feel 
the  love  of  His  heart.  Therefore  it  was,  that  He 
so  subduingly  appealed  to  us,  and  was  prepared  to 
respond  to  the  faintest,  lingering  sense  of  the  divine 
that  might  lie  dormant  within,  to  recreate  it  where 
it  had   seemed   utterly  perished,  and  to   satisfy  it 


INCARNATION. 


with  Himself.  Very  God  incarnated  Himself  in 
Christ,  the  Christ  who  lived  and  died  on  this  earth. 
It  was  God  who  looked  forth  on  men  through  the 
eyes  of  Christ,  God  who  spoke  to  men  through  the 
voice  of  Christ,  God  who  beamed  on  men  from 
the  face  of  Christ.  It  was  God,  His  majesty  and 
power,  His  pmity  and  wisdom.  His  abhorrence  of 
evil  and  infinite  pity  for  evil-doers.  His  gentleness 
and  patience,  His  meekness  and  His  boundless 
mercy  which  were  unveiled  throughout  the  whole 
life  and  in  the  whole  spirit  of  Christ.  The  very 
heart  of  God,  in  its  deepest  fountains,  was  laid  open 
and  was  seen  to  gush  forth  in  the  tears  and  in  the 
life-blood  of  Christ.  Christ  was  full  of  God  ;  up  to 
the  highest  limit  of  the  capacity  of  a  pure  human 
soul,  Christ  was  full  of  God,  breathing  out,  stream- 
ing forth,  brimming  over  with  the  divine,  that  the 
divine,  through  his  medium  i  (mediation)  might 
re-enter  men's  souls  and  might  subdue  and  quicken 
and  restore  them.  And  it  did  ;  as  a  simple  matter 
of  fact,  it  did. 

Jesus  while  he  lived  on  earth  sought  and  gained 
an  entrance — an  entrance  for  God — into  human  souls. 
Silently,  even  more  than  openly,  he  deposited  in  the 
world  a  hidden  leaven,  which  ever  since  has  been 

^  I  look  on  this,  as  supplying  the  key  to  some  of  the  eccentric 
intricacies  of  scholastic  theology,  and  revealing  the  entire  meaning 
of  the  doctrine  of  mediation. 


28  INCARNATION. 


diffusing  itself  tlirongh  the  mass  of  humanity  and 
shall  continue  to  diffuse  itself,  until  the  whole  be 
leavened.  Often  unobserved,  but  with  a  free  hand, 
he  scattered  on  all  sides  the  incorruptible  seed  of 
the  kingdom.  Many  a  harvest  from  that  first  sow- 
ing has  since  been  reaped,  but  the  full  produce 
shall  be  known  only  at  the  last  great  ingathering 
day,  when  the  world's  harvest-home  shall  be  cele- 
brated. During  the  earthly  life  of  Christ  many 
were  touched  and  probed  as  they  never  had  been 
before.  New  and  strange  thoughts  were  widely 
awakened — thoughts  concerning  the  existing  state 
of  things,  religion,  worship,  and  personal  virtue, 
concerning  sin  and  its  desert,  concerning  the  future 
life  and  its  double  aspect,  concerning  God,  His 
character.  His  providence,  and  His  relation  to  men, 
and  not  least,  concerning  the  marvellous  Person, 
who  stood  before  them  and  spoke  and  acted  in 
God's  name,  with  such  authority  and  with  such 
meekness.  We  can  imagine,  what  indeed  was  the  lite- 
ral historical  fact,  a  state  of  profound  wonder  created 
in  many  parts  of  Judea,  a  startled  tremulous  feeling 
awakened,  as  if  something  were  about  to  happen,  they 
knew  not  what,  a  sense  of  the  divine,  as  if  they  felt 
that  somehow  God  was  very  near.  It  is  certain  that 
by  his  blessed  earthly  life,  by  his  acts  of  power  and 
love,  by  his  words  of  wisdom  and  grace,  by  the  stain- 
less purity,  the  beauty  and  all  the  winning  attractions 


INCARNATION.  29 


of  liis  character,  by  the  lioly,  loving  spirit  wliicli 
flowed  out  from  liis  entire  life,  and  encircled  liim 
like  a  robe  and  diffused  a  divine  breath  all  around 
him,  by  the  ignominies  and  the  agonies  and  the 
unquenchable  love  of  his  death,  by  God  in  him,  by 
the  God  who  found  in  him,  and  most  wondrously  of 
all,  in  his  cross,  a  new  mcdmm^-  through  which  to 
come  down  on  men,  in  a  way  never  before  possible, 
Jesus  while  he  lived  and  when  he  died,  acted  on  the 
world  with  a  secret,  holy  power.  He  has  never  since 
ceased,  nor  shall  he  ever  cease,  to  wield  this  spiritual 
power  over  the  minds  and  hearts  of  men.  "  I,  if  I  be 
lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me."  What  was  once 
only  prediction  is  now  history.  It  is  as  if  in  calm,  far- 
seeing  faith,  our  humbled  Lord  had  said,  "  In  spite  of 
the  anguish  and  the  shame  of  the  cross,  by  means  of 
the  anguish  and  the  shame  of  the  cross,  as  no  remote 
cause,  I  shall  yet  conquer  the  world  and  gain  all  hearts, 
and  reign  in  them  as  their  chosen  Saviour  and  King." 
During  the  earthly  life  of  our  Lord,  not  one  even 
of  his  chosen  disciples  seems  to  have  ascended  to  the 
idea  of  Incarnation.  He  was  "  the  teacher  sent  from 
God,"  "  a  prophet  in  the  power  and  spirit  of  Elijali," 
"the  Christ,"  "the  Son  of  the  living  God ;"  but  by 
all  such  language,  they  meant  no  more,  than  that  he 
was  the  Messiah,  the  Anointed,  the  most  honoured 
messenger  of  Heaven.     Perhaps  on  reflection  it  may 

■^  See  note,  page  27. 


30  INCAKNATION. 


be  found,  that  the  real  wonder  is,  not  that  the  dis- 
ciples did  not  at  once  discover  the  whole  truth 
concerning  their  Master,  but  that  they  recognised 
so  much  as  they  did,  and  that  even  whilst  he  stood 
amongst  them,  in  his  youth,  his  poverty,  his 
obscurity,  and  all  the  perplexing  circumstances 
which  environed  him,  their  reverence  for  him 
was  so  profound  and  their  devotion  to  him  so  in- 
tense. They  thought  the  very  highest  and  worthiest 
possible  of  their  Lord,  but  in  the  nature  of  the 
case  he  was  too  near,  too  constant  an  object  of 
sight,  and  too  closely  encircled  with  seeming  in- 
compatibilities for  the  idea  of  essential  divinity,  to 
take  assured  hold  of  their  minds.  Incarnation, 
profoundly  true,  was  a  truth  of  reflection,  not  of 
perception,  a  truth  for  the  meditative,  contem- 
plative states  of  the  soul,  when  it  is  most  set  free 
from  the  outward  senses  and  from  the  prejudices 
of  education  and  of  habit. 

Jesus  must  be  withdrawn  in  order  to  be  truly 
known.  The  disciples  must  be  left  to  think,  to 
ponder  in  quiet  all  which  they  had  seen  and  heard, 
away  from  those  outward  environments  which  neces- 
sarily encumbered  and  swayed  their  judgments. 
Then,  but  not  till  then,  the  whole  truth  flashed 
upon  them,  and  they  were  simply  amazed  at  their 
previous  blindness.  But  they  could  not  have  been 
amazed  at  the  last,  unless  they  had  been  before- 


INCARNATION.  31 


hand  ripening  and  were  at  length  ripe  for  the  con- 
clusion at  which  they  arrived.  They  now  saw, 
but  not  before,  that  the  divine  had  so  often  come 
forth  in  the  words  and  the  life  and  the  very  face 
of  Jesus,  that  unless  their  eyes  had  been  sealed, 
they  must  have  been  overpowered  by  the  evidence. 
The  Incarnate  was  apprehended  more  clearly  and 
understood  better,  after  his  departure,  than  during 
his  stay  among  men.  The  disciples  could  then, 
and  only  then,  look  back  on  his  course  as  a  whole, 
weigh  all  the  circumstances,  compare,  contrast,  and 
connect  together,  what  they  had  witnessed  only  in 
detached  portions,  and  thus  form  a  juster  concep- 
tion than  had  been  possible  before.  The  clear  con- 
viction took  hold  of  them,  and  rooted  itself  in  their 
souls,  that  Jesus  was  divine.  It  was  an  over- 
whelming truth,  but  it  was  a  truth,  and  they 
never  ceased  to  proclaim  it,  as  the  highest  theme 
of  their  mission,  that  very  God  had  loved  the 
world,  had  stooped  down  in  Christ  Jesus,  that  He 
might  lift  up  His  creatures,  and  in  order  to  conquer 
man  had  Himself  become  man. 

While  he  lived  on  earth,  the  veiled  brightness 
of  the  Father's  glory  was  truly  unknown ;  in  the 
patient,  wise  love  of  God,  he  was  suffered  to  be 
unknown.  Divinity  might  have  flashed  forth  in 
rays  of  overwhelming  splendour,  and  ignorance  and 
unbelief    had    been   impossible,    but   all  the   high 


32  INCARNATION. 


moral  ends  of  the  marvellous  intervention  must 
have  been  lost  in  such  a  case.  Jesus  willingly  sub- 
mitted to  be  unknown,  meekly  gave  himself  up 
to  be  set  at  nought  and  scorned.  *'  He  was  de- 
spised, and  we  esteemed  him  not ;  he  was  despised 
and  rejected  of  men,  a  man  of  sorrows  and  ac- 
quainted with  grief."  Through  life  till  death  he 
bore  the  contradiction  of  sinners  against  himself. 
He  was  obscure,  and  poor,  and  hungry,  and 
thirsty,  and  faint.  Full  of  gentle  pity,  weeping 
with  human  sorrow,  tenderly  caring  for  the  af- 
flicted, for  the  children  of  penury  and  toil,  for  the 
tempted  and  even  for  the  fallen,  his  life  from  its 
beginning  to  its  close  was  one  of  constant  humilia- 
tion, privation,  and  suffering.  Doing  only  good 
in  countless  forms  of  loving-kindness  and  of  power, 
and  uttering  words  of  heavenly  wisdom  and  grace, 
which  are  living  and  mighty  at  this  hour,  men 
could  not  endure  him.  Either  he  must  cease  to 
be  what  he  was,  or  he  must  cease  to  live.  The 
first  was  impossible ;  the  last  became  a  terrible 
reality.  They  falsely  charged  him  with  crime, 
they  condemned  him  to  death,  they  crucified  him 
between  two  thieves,  and  he  bowed  his  head  and 
gave  up  the  ghost  and  died. 

It  is  no  question,  but  a  historical  fact,  that 
Jesus  fell  a  sacrifice  to  the  cruelty  and  hatred  of 
men.     It  is  no  question,  but  a  historical  fact,  that 


INCARNATION.  33 


he  deliberately  and  voluntarily  sacrificed  his  own 
life,  and  we  are  assured  that  this  fact  was  no  less 
"according  to  the  determinate  counsel  and  fore- 
knowledge of  God."  All  that  he  endured,  he 
endured  of  his  own  free  choice  and  purpose;  but 
he  did  so,  at  the  same  time,  in  loving  submission 
to  the  Supreme  disposal.  Not  a  jot  did  he  seek 
to  bate.  At  all  hazards  and  at  whatever  cost, 
he  calmly  persevered  to  the  last.  Men,  with 
wicked  hands,  might  seek  to  stop  his  course — 
without  supernatural  intervention,  they  could  not 
have  been  restrained  from  the  attempt — but  that 
course  must  not  be  abandoned  by  him.  And  it 
was  not.  Calmly,  meekly  prepared  for  the  worst, 
he  would  not  and  did  not  quail  before  the  ex- 
tremest  perils  of  his  divine  mission.  God  in  him, 
and  through  him,  was  willing  to  do  anything  and 
everything  for  the  redemption  of  the  world.  At 
last  the  Father,  instead  of  shielding  and  saving, 
gave  uj)  to  human  malice  and  rage,  that  beloved 
Son  in  whom  He  was  ever  well  pleased.    . 

Behold  "  the  Lamb  of  God ! "  God's  sacrifice, 
not  man's,  although  it  was  for  man — wholly  for 
man.  Behold  the  surrender  which  God  was  will- 
ing to  make,  and  did  make,  for  the  world  !  If  ever 
that  word,  sacrifice,  was  fitly  applied,  it  is  here ; 
for  Jesus  was  literally  offered  up  a  sacrifice  to  the 

rage    and  lust   of  men.      And   if  ever  a   sacrifice 

c 


34  INCARNATION. 


could  justly  be  called  God's, — could  be  said  to  be 
made  by  God,  it  was  this;  for  God  had  provided 
the  Lamb  for  a  burnt-olFering,  in  a  way  altogether 
unexampled.  And  it  was  God,  ever  in  beautiful 
and  entire  harmony  with  the  human  will  of  Jesus, 
who,  from  the  first,  yielded  up  this  victim  for  the 
world,  and  at  last  suffered  it  to  fall  a  sacrifice  to 
the  clamours  of  a  maddened  populace.^  But, 
withal,  if  that  holy  Being,  born  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  was  never  mere  man,  but  ever  a  divine  man, 
if  very  God  was  in  mysterious  union  with  this 
humanity,  inhabiting,  possessing,  and  filling  it,  in 
a  way  we  cannot  comprehend,  what  shall,  what  can 
be  said,  without  blasphemy,  of  the  cross?  The 
overwhelming  truth  seems  to  stand  out  distinctly 
and  awfully,  that  in  giving  up  Christ — himself 
ever  a  willing  victim — to  a  life  of  toil,  and  sor- 
row, and  thankless  neglect,  and  to  a  death  of  shame 
and  pain,  the  Great  God  was  making  not  only  a 
true  surrender,  but  in  some  real  sort  a  personal 
surrender.      The  Incarnation  itself  alone — the  bare 

^  It  abides  for  ever  not  less  true,  that  our  Lord  freely  sacri- 
ficed his  life  in  the  cause  of  God  and  of  man.  "He  loved  us," 
says  an  apostle,  "and  gave  himself  for  us,  an  offering  and  a 
sacrifice  to  God,  of  a  sweet  smelling  savour."  No  sacrifice  ever 
was  so  pleasing  to  God,  as  that  which  Christ  offered  in  his  own 
body  on  the  tree ;  and  none  had  ever  so  rich  and  sweet  a  fragrance 
as  when  Christ  bowed  his  head  and  died — died  because  he  loved 
man,  and  the  God  to  whom  man  was,  by  this  wondrous  means,  to 
be  restored  and  reconciled. 


INCAENATION.  35 


mysterious  fact — was,  to  our  conceptions,  a  descent, 
a  stooping  down,  a  self-abasement  on  the  part  of 
Grod.  But  tlie  humbled,  afflicted  life  of  the  In- 
carnate, closing  in  an  ignominious  and  cruel  death, 
was  yet  more  significantly  a  sacrifice,  a  sacrifice 
baptized  in  blood,  and  crowned  with  thorns,  and 
crushed  beneath  a  cross;  it  was  a  prolonged  act  of 
virtual  self-sacrifice  on  the  part  of  the  invisible  God, 
for  our  Lord  could  say,  though  the  words  be  strictly 
inexplicable  and  unfathomable  by  us,  "I  and  my 
Father  are  one." 

The  ground  of  sacrifice  can  only  be  evil,  not  good. 
In  a  perfect  state,  with  only  wise  and  pure  beings, 
sacrifice  would  be  impossible,  for  amidst  the  con- 
ditions of  such  a  state,  no  cause  of  sufiering  or 
loss  could  exist.  Things  must  have  gone  wrong, 
disaster  and  mischief  must  have  arisen,  before  the 
necessity  could  be  created  for  encountering,  either 
personally  or  through  loving  intervention,  a  lesser 
evil,  in  order  to  prevent  or  retrieve  a  greater.  If 
the  Father  sacrificed  His  beloved  Son,  and  if  we 
may  dare  to  say  that  God  in  Christ  submitted  to 
a  real,  literal  self-sacrifice,  it  can  only  have  been 
on  account  of  sin,  for  sin,  certainly  not  for  holi- 
ness, i       The  spotless  Lamb  of    God  was    ofiered 

^  All  such  expressions  in  the  New  Testament,  as  "  He  died  for 
our  sins,"  &c.,  that  is,  on  account  of  sin,  because  of  sin,  express  the 
simple,  literal  fact ;  unquestionably  the  notion  of  expiation  is,  at  all 
events,  not  necessarily  or  even  naturally  involved. 


36  INCARNATION. 


up,  for  no  otlier  assignable  or  possible  reason, 
than  because  of  the  sin  and  ruin  of  men.  Hence, 
with  literal  beautiful  truth,  the  words  are  applied 
to  him,  "  He  bare  our  sins  in  his  own  body  on 
the  tree."  So  also,  "  He  hath  borne  our  griefs 
and  carried  our  sorrows."  As  a  matter  of  per- 
sonal desert,  he  could  have  had  neither  sorrows, 
nor  griefs,  nor  sins  ;  but  in  undertaking  our  cause 
he  made,  as  far  as  that  was  possible,  our  sorrows, 
our  griefs,  and  our  sins,  his  own.  The  necessary 
effects  of  evil  in  this  evil  world  came  upon  him, 
as  if  he  had  been  an  evil-doer.  "We  did  esteem 
him  stricken,  smitten  of  God,  and  afflicted." 
But  it  was  a  mistake,  he  was  not  smitten  of 
God,  as  the  prophet  had  said.  No,  by  no  means, 
*'  He  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions,"  not  on 
any  personal  account  at  all ;  "  He  was  bruised  for 
our  iniquities,  the  chastisement  of  our  peace  was 
upon  him,  and  with  his  stripes  we  are  healed." 

Jesus  lived  and  died  wholly  and  solely  for  man, 
and  because  of  man's  sins.  He  sacrificed  himself, 
his  life,  his  soul,  and  was  sacrificed  by  God,  for 
the  world,  and  on  account  of  the  world's  sins. 
As  the  second  Adam,  the  new  head  of  humanity, 
he  came  to  take  the  very  position,  and  to  enter 
into  the  very  circumstances,  and  into  the  entire 
earthly  condition  of  man.  In  this  sense,  he  was 
really  substituted  for  man,  in  order  that  he  might 


INCAKNATION.  37 


do  what  man  ought  to  have  done  for  himself,  but 
never  could  have  done.  In  this  view,  all  that  he 
said,  all  that  he  did,  and  all  that  he  endured, 
was  truly  vicarious  and  substitutionary,  was  on  no 
personal  account,  and  for  no  personal  ends  what- 
ever, but  for  the  sake  and  on  account  of  the 
world,  and  nothing  else.  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
had  no  personal  interests  to  serve,  apart  from 
man.  and  no  purely  personal  obligations  of  any 
kind  to  meet.  He  had  not  even  a  personal  exist- 
ence at  all,  except  in  relation  to  man.  True,  he 
was  acting  for  God.  He  was  the  being  specially 
introduced  into  the  race,  and  literally  produced 
by  God,  to  deal  with  men,  and  through  whose 
wondrous  medium  i  (mediation,)  God  purposed  to 
reconcile  them  to  Himself.  He  had,  therefore, 
the  highest  divine  interests  to  care  for  and  to 
conduct.  But  emphatically  he  was  acting  foi 
man,  and  originating  spiritual  influences  which 
should  bear  with  almighty  force  upon  the  nature 
of  man.  The  highest  human  interests  were  com- 
mitted to  his  hands,  and  lay  on  his  heart.  The 
whole  purpose  of  his  being,  the  absorbing  passion 
of  his  soul,  is  expressed  in  a  single  word,  recon- 
ciliation— atonement — the  reconciliation  of  man  to 
God.  He  came,  he  lived,  he  died,  he  lives  for 
evermore,    to    reconcile,    to    atone    men    to    their 

^  See  note,  page  27. 


38  INCARNATION. 


Father.  Personally,  during  his  life  in  this  world, 
this  was  the  purpose  at  which  he  aimed,  and 
which  he  accomplished,  in  measure.  But  he 
accomplished  it,  because  he  was  unconsciously  felt, 
even  where  he  was  not  fully  known,  to  be  God's 
sacrifice — ^the  outcome  and  the  utterance  of  God's 
reconciling,  atoning  love.  The  cross  triumphed, 
in  the  hands  of  the  apostles,  because  it  was  the 
cross  of  incarnate  love,  for  this  was  not  onb 
never  disguised,  but  everywhere  proclaimed  aloud, — 
God-in-Christ,  not  God,  not  The  Absolute  God, 
but  "  God-in-Christ  is  reconciling  (gaining  back) 
the  world  to  Himself,  not  imputing  their  trespasses 
unto  them.''  This  was  the  holy,  lofty  theme  of 
apostolic  preaching  !  —  Infinite  love,  making  a 
stupendous  surrender,  uttering  itself  in  a  myste- 
rious act  of  self-sacrifice,  for  man  and  on  account 
of  man's  sin.  "  Herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved 
God,  but  that  He  loved  us,  and  sent  His  Son  to 
be  the  propitiation  for  our  sins." 

The  cross,  as  a  symbol  of  the  divine,  has  be- 
come the  sublimest  and  most  sacred  object  in  the 
universe  !  It  is  a  power  all  but  resistless,  to  touch 
and  to  subdue  the  soul  of  man ;  and  the  source 
of  its  power  goes  down  to  the  earlier,  deeper 
mystery  of  Incarnation.  The  bare  idea  of  God 
loving  the  world  at  all,  being  what  it  was,  of 
God  so  loving  the  world  as  to  become  incarnate — 


INCAENATION.  39 


and  it  is  only  the  remotest  fringe  and  verge  of 
the  thought  which  it  is  possible  for  us  to  reach  ; — 
the  bare  idea  of  Incarnation,  and  of  the  meek,  en- 
during patience  of  the  Incarnate,  is  overwhelming, 
and  the  heart  realising  it,  even  for  an  instant,  is 
scarcely  able  to  bear  the  conception. 

That  the  Great  Grod,  the  Father  of  all  souls, 
should  pity  and  love  them  in  their  sins,  should  so 
love  them  as  to  come  near  to  them,  to  come 
down  among  them ;  that  He  should  preter- 
naturally  introduce  and  add  to  the  race  a  true 
human  being,  bone  of  our  bone,  and  flesh  of  our 
flesh,  and  His  own  only-begotten  and  beloved 
Son;  that  very  God,  the  one  awful,  incomprehen- 
sible Jehovah,  should  enter  into  and  unite  Him- 
self with  the  human  soul  of  Jesus  Christ,  and 
should,  in  this  regard,  limit  Himself  by  the  con- 
ditions of  humanity;  that  this  God-man,  in  mere 
pure  love  to  a  darkened,  fallen,  and  sinful  world, 
should  live  on  the  earth  and  walk  among  men  as 
one  of  them ;  that  he  should  suffer  liimself  to 
be  unknown  in  his  true  character,  and  to  be 
known  only  as  an  obscure  and  poor  young  man,  a 
working  mechanic  ;  that  he,  perfectly  spotless,  un- 
defiled  and  separate  from  sinners,  going  about 
doing  good,  preaching,  and  teaching,  and  working 
miracles  of  mercy,  should  submit  to  be  persecuted, 
despised,  and  hated,  and  should  meekly  bear  all 


40  INCARNATION. 


the  contradictions  of  sinners  without  a  murmur  to 
the  last ;  that  he  being  what  he  was,  should 
preserve  his  obscurity  and  keep  the  veil  drawn 
close  around  him,  in  steadfast  fidelity  to  his  own 
and  his  Father's  purpose,  and  in  simple  consis- 
tency with  the  position  he  had  assumed,  when  a 
word  or  an  unuttered  wish  would  have  been  suffi- 
cient to  reveal  his  glory ;  that  in  intense,  pure 
regard  for  such  beings  as  those  who  at  last 
murdered  him,  he  should  meekly  go  through  all 
the  scenes  of  the  last  Supper,  the  garden  of  Geth- 
semane,  the  hall  of  Caiaphas,  the  judgment-hall  of 
Pilate,  and  of  Mount  Calvary,  and  the  cross ! 

This  is  the  unscrutable  mystery  of  incarnate 
love!  the  hidden  spring  of  that  moral  power  over 
the  human  heart,  which,  in  myriads  of  instances, 
has  proved  irresistible.  On  the  one  hand,  God 
in  Christ — in  Christ  in  his  life,  in  Christ  on  the 
cross — is  reconciling  men  to  Himself,  and  employ- 
ing His  mightiest  instrument  for  recovering,  gain- 
ing back,  redeeming  the  world.  On  the  other 
hand,  Christ  —  Christ  in  his. life,  Christ  on  the 
cross,  is  God  impersonated,  so  far  as  a  human 
medium  and  method  of  impersonation  could  reach. 
Christ  is  the  nature  of  God,  brought  near  and  un- 
veiled to  human  eyes.  Christ  is  the  heart  of  God 
laid  open,  that  men  might  almost  hear  the  beat 
of  its   unutterable    throbbings,    might  almost  feel 


INCARNATION.  41 


the  rush  of  its  mighty  pulsations.  The  Incarnate 
in  his  life,  and  in  his  death,  in  his  words  and 
in  his  deeds,  in  his  whole  character,  and  spirit, 
and  work  on  earth,  was  ever  unveiling  the  Father, 
and  making  a  path  for  the  Father,  into  the  human 
soul.  But  on  the  cross,  Christ  presses  into  the 
very  centre  of  the  world's  heart,  takes  possession 
of  it,  and  there  in  that  centre  preaches,  as  no- 
where else  was  possible,  the  gospel  of  God's  love  I 
''  Be  ye  reconciled  to  God,''  he  cries,  "  Come  back 
to  your  Father  I  He  hath  sent  me  to  call  you 
back !  Inflexibly  righteous  as  He  is.  He  pities. 
He  loves  you,  and  only  waits  to  forgive  and  wel- 
come you  I" 

Beautiful  and  simple  is  the  primitive  New  Testa- 
ment gospel.  It  was  this  which,  with  plentiful 
effusion  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  was  proclaimed  through 
the  wide  earth,  with  triumphant  effect,  by  apostles. 
It  is  this,  which  has  ever  since  been  and  shall  con- 
tinue to  be  mighty  through  God,  until  every  knee 
shall  bow  to  him,  who  lived  and  died  for  men,  and 
until  every  tongue  shall  confess  that  he  is  Lord, 
to  the  glory  of  God  the  Father? 


CHAPTEE  II. 


HUMAN  SIN. 


Section  First.— What  Sin  is,  and  the  Sense  of  Siir. 
Section  Second.— Redemption  from  Sin. 


SECTION  FIRSTr 

What  Sin  is  and  the  Sense  of  Sin — Essential  Distinction — Burden 
of  Universe — Radical  Difficulty  in  Speculation — Unrest  in  all 
Earnest  Souls  —  Consciousness  of  Sin — Its  Development  — 
Legitimate  Result. 

DAEKNESS  is  a  simple  negative — the  absence 
of  light,  no  more.  In  the  moral  region,  that 
which  answers  to  physical  darkness  is  a  dire  posi- 
tive, no  mere  negative,  but  reality,  as  monstrous 
as  it  is  real.  The  radical  difficulty  in  all  specula- 
tion which  ventures  within  the  highest  sphere  of 
thought,  is  sin, — not  weakness,  not  original  imper- 
fection, not  misfortune,  not  accident,  owing  to  some 
untoward,  fortuitous  combination  of  influences,  but 
distinctly  sin, — real  essential  evil,  conscious,  volun- 
tary evil,  resistance  to  what  is  known  to  be  right, 
and  choice  of  what  is  known  to  be  wrong. 

Incarnation  supposes  human  sin  as  its  necessary 
ground.  Except  for  this  deadly,  self -originated 
curse  in  the  nature  of  man,  no  sacrifice,  and  above 
all,   no   such  sacrifice,  had  been  needed  from  the 


46  HUMAN   SIN. 


loving  Father.  There  is  one,  only  one,  foul  blot 
on  God's  universe,  and  this  the  Almighty  has  been 
at  infinite  pains  to  wipe  out.  Whatever  creatures 
think  of  it,  to  their  Creator  sin  must  be  reality, 
a  dread  reality.  It  means  the  disorganisation,  the 
pollution,  the  ruin  of  created  minds,  the  one  foun- 
tain of  misery  and  crime. 

"  Everything  in  Christianity,"  says  Miiller,  "  re- 
lates to  the  great  contrast  between  sin  and  re- 
demption, and  it  is  impossible  to  understand  the 
doctrine  of  redemption,  which  is  the  very  essence 
of  Christianity,  until  we  have  a  thorough  know- 
ledge of  sin.  Christian  theology  here,  if  anywhere, 
wages  war,  ^ro  avis  et  focis,  with  Deistical  extenua- 
tions, and  Pantheistical  attenuations  of  this  doc- 
trine.''"^       With  much  that  is  profoundly  true,  in 

^  "  Die  Christliclie  Lehre,  von  der  Siinde."  Julius  Miiller,  Breslau, 
1858.  Vorvvort,  s.  3,  4.  The  English  sentences  quoted  are  taken 
from  a  very  faithful  translation  by  the  Eev.  W.  Pulsford,  now  of 
Glasgow.  Miiller's  treatise  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  theolo- 
gical efforts  of  which  Germany  can  boast.  It  is  a  vindication  of 
evangelical  doctrine,  but  in  the  language,  and  after  the  mode  of 
another  school  of  thought.  The  voice  is  the  voice  of  Jacob,  but 
the  hands  are  Esau's,  and  the  outward  dress  and  figure  belong  to 
the  disinherited  son.  The  work  is  orthodox  as  the  phrase  goes, 
though  with  some  not  inconsiderable  exceptions,  but  the  method 
and  the  structure  are  conspicuously  philosophic,  even  rationalistic. 
For  extensive  learning,  searching  criticism,  exhaustive  discussion, 
accurate,  subtle,  and  clear  logic,  the  utmost  painstaking  and  the 
severest  elaboration,  it  would  be  difficult,  in  any  language,  on  any 
subject,  to  match  this  masterly  production.    Modern  philosophy  in 


HUMAN   SIN.  47 


these  statements,  there  mingles,  as  we  judge,  a 
dangerous  fallacy.  A  thorough,  meaning  as  Miiller 
certainly  intends,  a  scientific  knowledge  and  inter- 
pretation of  sin,  we  must  hold  to  be  impossible. 
We  know  sufficiently  well  what  sin  is  in  ourselves, 
and  we  see  clearly  enough  its  manifestations  in 
others,  but  we  cannot  account  for  it.  It  defies 
interpretation.  There  is  an  inscrutable  mystery  in 
human  sin,  which  removes  it  beyond  the  reach  of 
logic,  and  far  out  of  the  range  of  scientific  treat- 
ment. It  is  impossible  to  place  it  on  a  purely 
scientific  basis,  and  to  reduce  it  to  recognised  laws. 
Sin  is  not,  in  any  sense,  a  law  of  matter  or  of  mind, 
it  obeys  no  law,  and  is  altogether  outside  the  sphere 
of  law.     It  is  not  an  intelligible  principle,  but  the 

the  hands  of  Kant,  Schelling,  and  Hegel,  patristic  and  scholastic 
theology  are  each  laid  under  contribution.  The  nature  of  sin,  its 
ground-principle,  the  various  theories  respecting  it,  as  simple  or 
dualistic,  as  privation,  deformity,  metaphysical  imperfection,  neces- 
sity or  antagonism  between  the  senses  and  the  soul ;  the  causa- 
tion of  sin,  the  fact  and  the  universality  of  sin,  the  corruption '  of 
human  nature  ;  all  are  laboriously  investigated  and  discussed.  The 
whole  field  is  examined  with  most  minute  and  patient  care,  and  not 
a  single  corner,  not  a  spot  of  it  is  overlooked.  At  the  same  time, 
this  very  excellence  is  also  a  fault.  The  distinctions  and  reason- 
ings are  too  subtle,  too  minute,  and  the  impression  is  produced  of 
logical  wire-drawing  and  hair-splitting.  And  then,  owing  to  the 
author's  manifest  desire  to  leave  nothing  untouched,  the  side  dis- 
cussions are  so  numerous,  without  being  important,  that  it  amounts 
to  waste  labour,  and  worse,  for  the  labour  wearies  the  spirit  of  the 
reader.  The  work  is  one  of  extraordinary  merit,  but  it  can  interest 
deeply  only  a  select  class  of  readers. 


48  HUMAN   SIN. 


overthrow  of  all  principles.  Essentially  considered, 
it  is  the  violation  of  all  order  and  of  all  law,  wholly 
an  abnormal,  anomalous  outgrowth  of  human  nature. 
But  inscrutable  as  the  mystery  is,  its  real  existence 
is  proclaimed  by  the  universal  consciousness.  Ke- 
search,  criticism,  discussion  are  invaluable,  here  as 
everywhere,  in  their  own  place,  but  with  all  their  aid, 
we  reach  our  deepest  satisfaction,  only  in  the  clear 
testimony  of  the  inward  witness,  and  so  much  the 
more,  because  we  find  this  to  be  a  distinct  echo 
of  the  voice  of  God  in  His  holy  Word.  Each 
human  being  knows  within  himself,  that  he  sins 
when  he  sins,  and  what  sin  really  is. 

There  is  no  merit  in  admitting  that  in  some 
quarters,  there  has  been  too  sweeping  a  denuncia- 
tion of  human  nature,  as  if  it  were  only  and 
wholly  bad,  and  as  if  it  retained  no  trace  of  God, 
or  of  goodness  of  any  kind.  We  have  unhealthily 
stimulated  certain  minds,  peculiarly  constituted, 
have  tempted  them  to  brood  over  the  fact,  the 
nature  and  the  desert  of  moral  evil,  produced  in 
them  a  state  of  diseased  sensibility,  and  have  thus 
led  the  way  to  fanaticism  and  superstition.  The 
habit  of  spiritual  self-dissection,  of  analysing  and 
testing  the  inward  states,  has  been  unwisely  fos- 
tered, and  has  often  been  cruelly  severe,  and  has 
as  often  resulted  in  most  dishonouring  thoughts  of 


HUMAN   SIN.  49 


God,  His  severity,  His  justice,  His  vengeance,  and 
His  pitiless  infliction  of  punishment. 

But  it  cannot  be  denied,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  there  are  many  who,  owing  to  their  educa- 
tion and  associations,  their  keen  enjoyment  of 
earthly  life,  and  their  eager  interest  in  it,  their 
ambition,  their  self-reliance,  and  their  buoyancy  of 
soul,  do  in  effect  make  a  mock  of  sin,  and  treat 
it  as  a  morbid  fiction.  That  which  underlies  the 
whole  Bible,  as  among  its  deepest  foundations ; 
that,  without  which  all  God's  inspirations  and  all 
the  agencies  of  moral  providence  are  either  mockery 
or  folly ;  that  to  which  the  laws  of  all  nations  and 
the  history  of  all  times  bear  emphatic  witness ;  that 
which  the  consciousness  of  every  thoughtful  man 
attests  as  strongly  as  it  attests  his  existence,  is  put 
aside,  as  worthy  of  no  consideration.  An  atrocious 
violator  of  human  and  divine  laws,  it  is  thought, 
may  reasonably  be  a  prey  to  terror,  and  naturally 
enough  may  cry  to  Heaven  for  mercy,  since  he  can 
expect  none  from  earth.  But  it  is  strongly  main- 
tained, that  with  regard  to  men  in  general,  with 
regard  to  persons  of  average  character  and  stand- 
ing, a  feeling  of  alarm  on  account  of  what  is  called 
sin,  must  prove  either  imbecility  or  disease,  or 
both,  and  can  argue  nothing  but  the  weakness  of 
ignorance,  or  a  morbid  fanaticism,  unjust  to  man, 

D 


50  HUMAN    SIN. 


and  betraying  most  false  conceptions  of  the  Al- 
mighty. The  very  word  "  sin  "  is  interdicted  as  an 
offence,  save  in  the  sphere  of  theology.  Though 
all  experience  proves  sin  to  be  an  invariable  and 
universal  quality  of  human  nature,  it  must  not  be 
named,  except  under  certain  stringent  conditions. 
The  vices  and  the  crimes  of  nations  and  of  times 
are  pronounceable,  but  their  sins,  not  by  any 
means,  except  from  the  sacred  desk  and  by  the 
professional  teacher  of  religion. 

Sin  means  something  other  than  is  conveyed  by  the 
word  "  vice,"  or  "  crime,"  or  any  similar  term.  The 
idea  of  God  is  called  up,  and  is  meant  to  be  called 
up.  It  is  something  with  which  He  has  to  do, 
which  He  sees  and  marks,  and  which  amounts  to 
a  real  wrong  done  to  Him.  A  man's  sin  touches 
his  character  before  his  Maker,  and  declares  him 
amenable  to  the  eye  and  to  the  law  of  the  Great 
Judge.  But  herein  lies  the  very  ground  of  offence. 
Men  are  not,  it  is  said,  and  must  not  constitute 
themselves,  each  other's  judges.  The  secrets  of  the 
gonscience  belong  sacredly  to  the  individual,  and 
no  man,  unless  in  a  presumptuous  and  Pharisaic 
spirit,  is  entitled  to  step  forth  from  his  compeers, 
as  if  he  were  holier  than  they,  and  to  speak  of 
their  sins,  and  to  rank  them  as  sinners,  intruding 
into  the  very  sacredest  of  all  their  relations — that 
in  which  they  stand  to  the  Almighty.     Sins  come 


HUMAN  SIN.  51 


only  within  the  province  of  God.  It  belongs  to 
Him,  and  only  to  Him,  to  judge  His  creatures, 
and  to  punish  or  forgive;  and'  before  Him  the 
best  and  the  worst  of  men,  it  is  thought,  may  be 
very  much  on  a  level.  Perhaps  the  Infinitely  Holy 
does  not  at  all  regard  sins  as  we,  in  our  morbid 
religiousness,  are  tempted  to  do.  Perhaps  all  sins 
will  be  dealt  with  mercifully  by  Him  at  the  last. 

The  difference  in  these  two  modes  of  estimat- 
ing moral  evil  is  fundamental,  and  radical ;  and 
with  pain  it  must  be  noted,  that  even  the  ancient 
heathendom  will  be  found  to  utter  a  lesson  on  this 
subject,  not  unneeded  in  these  later  days.  That 
darkened,  perplexed,  troubled,  mood  of  soul,  at 
the  root  of  which  lies  the  hidden  consciousness  of 
evil,  (imbecile  as  it  may  appear  to  modern  heroism,) 
was  not  strange  to  the  earnest  and  gifted  sages  of 
the  old  world.  They  did  not  use  the  conventional 
words  of  modern  creeds,  and  were  not  accustomed  to 
speak  as  we  do  of  the  anxious  sense  of  personal  sin. 
But  they  were  profoundly  anxious  and  in  earnest, 
nevertheless,  and  what  burdened  and  disquieted  them 
amidst  their  researches,  and  what  lay  underneath 
all  the  perplexity  and  unrest  which  they  felt, 
was  in  very  deed  the  old  and  ever  new  question, 
which  no  true  soul  can  escape,  "  How  shall  man 
be  right  with  God."  The  longer  they  pondered 
the  dark  questions^ of  the  universe,  and  the  farther 


52  HUMAN   SIN. 


they  seemed  to  pierce  into  the  darkness,  ever  the 
more  forcibly  were  they  thrown  back  on  them- 
selves, and  made  to  feel  vaguely  and  troubledly 
that  there  was  a  mystery  within,  having  its  dark 
type  without,  which  they  could  not  solve,  which, 
they  ever  dreaded  to  attempt  to  solve. 

The  ancient  philosophies  are  all  oppressed,  con- 
founded, and  baffled,  by  the  problem  of  God  !  What 
is  He  ?  Where  ?  How  ?  Is  there  an  eternal  unity  ? 
And  if  there  be,  by  what  method  can  we  ascend  to 
it.  The  real  cause  of  this  perplexity  does  not  appear 
on  the  surface ;  it  is  hidden,  covered  over,  involved 
and  tangled,  but  it  is  not  hard  to  discover  never- 
theless. That  which  rendered  the  problem  of  God 
80  overwhelming  was  a  darker  question  still,  which 
ancient  sages  durst  not  face,  a  question  lying  far 
more  within  than  in  the  outer  universe,  the  ques- 
tion of  evil,  real,  essential,  voluntary  evil,  sin. 
The  great  early  thinkers  tried  hard  to  pierce  back 
into  the  eternal  darkness,  to  descry  if  but  a  single 
spark-point  of  primeval  light.  They  searched  for 
unity,  causality,  absolute  being.  But  the  search 
was  for  ever  distracting.  A  voice  from  within, 
answering  to  a  voice  from  without,  seemed  to  mock 
their  efforts.  "First  solve  your  own  nature,"  it 
demanded;  *'all  things  are  out  of  course,"  it  pro- 
claimed, "harmony  is  a  dream,  mystery  impene- 
trable  is  above,  below,  around"    The  few  tones, 


HUMAN   SIN.  53 


solemn  and  grand  and  deep,  still  sounding  in  the 
world's  ear,  which  were  moaned  out  long  ago,  by 
the  old  sages  of  Elea,  Xenophanes,  and  Parmenides, 
have  an  almost  infinite  sorrow  in  them.  It  is  even 
true  of  the  Socratic  and  Platonic  philosophy,  with 
on  the  one  side  its  keen  humour,  its  common  sense, 
and  its  deep  profundity,  and  on  the  other  side, 
its  all  but  divine  beauty,  its  mystic  imagery,  its 
discriminating,  and  far  reaching  insight.  There  is 
throughout  an  undertone  of  sadness,  of  unrest, 
and  of  doubt,  which  to  miss,  is  to  lose  half  the 
power  of  the  impression  which  it  makes.  It  is 
the  same,  if  we  look  on,  to  the  age  of  Proclus 
and  Plotinus,  the  Alexandrian  followers  of  the 
Athenian  sage.  Very  emphatically  it  is  the  same, 
if  stepping  across  the  intervening  centuries,  we 
pass  downward  to  Spinoza,  and  Schelling,  and 
Hegel,  and  Fichte,  and  from  them,  to  the  leaders 
of  the  higher  speculation  in  these  modern  days. 
All  true  souls,  in  their  hours  of  profoundest  con- 
templation, have  been  oppressed  with  deep  sadness, 
but  it  has  ever  been  owing,  far  more  to  a  cause 
within  their  nature,  than  either  to  the  profundity 
or  the  vastness  of  the  subject  of  their  thoughts. 

Philosophical  methods  have  often  broken  up  in  a 
wail  of  disappointment.  The  universe  has  defied 
interpretation.  Kesearch,  long  successful,  has  come 
to  an  abrupt  close,  and  the  philosophical  inquirer 


04  HUMAN  SIN. 


lias  found  that  without  intending  it,  or  for  a  long 
time  being  even  conscious  of  it,  he  has  landed  in 
speculation  on  his  own  being,  as  if  either  the 
deepest  or  the  most  vexing  secret  lay  within  and 
not  without.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  also  true 
and  equally  true,  that  the  individual  soul  is  a  fair 
type  of  the  outer  frame  of  things.  Both  alike  are 
confused,  ravelled,  and  disorganised.  Impenetrable 
darkness  hangs  over  them,  immovable  perplexity 
wraps  them  round,  a  sore  burden  is  crushing  them 
with  its  intolerable  weight.  Ever  and  again,  the 
thought  darts  across  the  soul,  that  somehow  the 
perplexity,  the  darkness,  and  the  burden  are  centred 
in  man.  The  radical  curse  of  the  world  is  moral, 
not  physical.  Man  is  at  fault  out  of  harmony  with 
his  Maker,  and  forsaking  and  opposing  what  is 
supremely  right  and  good.  The  dark  mystery  of 
the  outer  creation  is  but  the  shadow  cast  by  the 
darker  mystery  within  man's  nature.  Often  alto- 
gether unconsciously,  but  sometimes  with  a  dim 
half-consciousness,  the  ages  have  been  struggling 
towards  light,  but  a  dense  opacity  in  the  inner- 
most region  of  the  soul  has  intercepted  and  quenched 
the  descending  rays.  The  sense  of  unrest  and  of 
fear,  at  the  bottom  of  the  world's  heart,  has  found 
a  voice,  through  many  different  modes,  in  mul- 
titudes of  separate  souls.  It  is  essentially  the 
same  in  all,  and  virtually  it  may  be    translated 


HUMAN   SIN.  55 


into  the  ancient  cry,  "  How  shall  man  be  right 
with  God."  And  this,  again,  Christianised  and 
more  deliberately  articulated  and  defined,  assumes 
the  form  familiar  to  us,  "What  shall  I  do  to  be 
saved?" 

Sin,  the  resistance  of  the  human  will  to  what 
is  known  to  be  true,  and  right,  and  good — sin 
is  a  dire  reality.  The  Great  God  has  pronounced 
His  judgment  respecting  it  in  the  Incarnation,  and 
more  profoundly  or  more  solemnly  He  could  not 
have  spoken.  The  sense  of  sin  in  the  human 
spirit  is  not  less  real  than  the  existence  of  sin. 
It  is  a  genuine  human  experience,  which  will  not 
be  ignored.  To  call  it  either  weakness  or  disease, 
is  simply  false  and  in  the  face  of  superabundant 
evidence.  There  can  be  no  impartiality  or  wisdom, 
not  even  simple  justice  to  a  great  question  which 
we  profess  to  entertain,  in  shutting  our  eyes 
against  a  distinct  fact  of  human  nature.  Men, 
neither  imbecile  nor  fanatical,  nor  nervously  dis- 
eased, but  intelligent,  gifted,  and  sober-minded; 
men,  too,  of  at  least  as  blameless  lives  as  others, 
have  been  oppressed  by  the  consciousness  of  inward 
evil  against  God,  and  have  been  filled  with  appre- 
hension, when  they  calmly  reflected,  to  what  that 
evil  must  lead,  and  ought  in  justice  to  lead. 
And  such  men,  when  the  light  at  length  shone 
within  them,  have  invariably  been  confounded  at 


5G  HUMAN    SIN. 


their  previous  indifference.  It  has  then  seemed 
to  them  clear  as  day,  that  if  they  had  had  but 
eyes  to  see,  they  must  long  before  have  seen  all 
which  has  at  last  become  so  vivid  and  so  porten- 
tous. 

Can  it  be  irrational  or  unnatural,  for  the  created 
spirit  to  think  of  the  Infinite,  All-creating  Spirit ; 
unnatural  to  try  to  conceive  the  relation  in  which 
it  stands  to  the  great  Father  of  aU  souls ;  unna- 
tural to  anticipate,  in  thought,  the  moment  when 
it  shall  be  disembodied,  before  His  presence?  It 
shall  be  disembodied,  in  no  long  course  of  years. 
That  is  perfectly  certain.  Can  it  be  unworthy  of 
the  intellect,  to  recognise  and  to  ponder  deeply 
this  certainty  ?  On  the  contrary,  must  it  not  be- 
come every  enlightened  man,  is  it  not  in  the 
highest  degree  imperative  upon  him,  as  a  plain 
dictate  of  reason  and  as  the  most  sacred  duty,  to 
forecast  that  unknown  and  inconceivable  condition 
of  being,  into  which  the  disembodied  spirit  shall 
be  ushered  ?  He  shall  certainly  then  be  near, 
in  a  sense  he  has  never  before  been,  to  that  In- 
finite Power,  on  whom,  from  the  first  moment  of 
existence,  he  has  been  wholly  and  ceaselessly  de- 
pendent. And  is  this  an  idea,  were  there  nothing 
more,  unlikely  to  pierce  to  the  depths  of  his 
nature?  Or,  in  the  light  of  this  guiding  idea,  is 
it  unnatural   for  him  to  reflect  that,   during   his 


HUMAN   SIN.  57 


earthly  life,  he  has  seldom  deliberately  thought  of 
this  Being,  to  whom  he  may  soon  be  so  near,  and 
who  is  so  great,  so  pure,  and  so  good?  But  he 
has  been  consciously  disinclined  to  think  of  God. 
That  is  the  simple  fact.  He  has  put  aside  the 
thought  when  it  presented  itself,  and  has  felt  it  to 
be  unwelcome.  The  inner  current  of  his  mind, 
his  thinkings,  his  inclinations,  his  tastes,  and  the 
outer  eminent  of  his  life,  have  been  in  frequent 
opposition  to  the  law  and  to  the  will  of  his  God. 
He  has  often  been  consciously  and  voluntarily  out 
of  harmony  with  truth  and  right,  and  love  and 
God.  There  may  be  no  exaggerated,  fanatical, 
superstitious  self -accusations  and  condemnations. 
He  may  feel  that  he  has  lived — much  as  others 
have  done — on  the  whole,  innocently  and  virtu- 
ously. There  may  be  no  flagrant  violations  of 
morality  with  which  he  can  charge  himself.  But 
this  is  clear  to  him,  he  has  not  thought  or  cared 
to  think  of  his  God.  He  has  not  loved  and  not 
served,  or  even  deliberately  purposed  to  serve,  the 
Being  to  whom  he  owes  everything — the  Father  of 
his  soul.  The  sense  of  God  has  not  been  the 
uppermost  force  within  him — the  central  inner 
spring  of  his  whole  life.  It  has  seldom  touched 
that  hfe,  or  entered  into  it  at  all.  Without  any 
violent  hysterical  alarms,  but  with  deep  solicitude, 
his  mind  is  distinctly  conscious  of  wrong  done  to 


58  HUMAN   SIN. 


God,  as  well  as  to  the  highest  part  of  his  own 
nature,  grievous  and  persistent  wrong.  Can  it  be 
degrading  in  these  circumstances,  must  it  not  be 
rational  and  altogether  inevitable,  for  an  instructed, 
reflective  man  to  fall  back  on  such  questions  as 
these, — "How  shall  I  meet  my  Maker? — how  can 
I  lift  up  my  face  before  Him  now,  and  what  can 
I  answer  Him  hereafter? — ^how  shall  I  escape 
righteous  retribution?"  If  the  Scriptures  declare, 
as  they  do,  that  "  the  soul  that  sinneth  shall  die," 
and  that  "  the  wages  of  sin  is  death,"  he,  on  his 
part,  is  unable  to  withhold  a  full  amen,  unable  to 
deny  that  the  sentence  is  just,  simply  just  and 
true,  absolutely  true. 

This  is  the  sense  of  sin,  conscious,  voluntary 
evil  against  God,  which  is  a  genuine  human  ex- 
perience, verified  in  myriads  of  instances,  and  re- 
sulting simply  from  earnest  and  calm  thought  on 
the  highest  and  truest  of  all  certainties.  Where 
it  is  profound  as  well  as  sincere,  the  experience 
forces  from  the  heart  a  cry  to  the  living  God  for 
escape.  The  man  in  whom  it  is  begotten  would 
eagerly  undo  what  he  has  done  if  he  could,  but  it  is 
impossible.  His  instant  necessity  is  escape — escape 
from  a  danger  which  he  sees  to  be  immediate,  and 
dreads  as  inevitable, — "  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved," 


SECTION  SECOND. 

Redemption  from  Sin — "  Way  of  Salvation  " — Adaptations  and 
Subtlety — Ground  of  Forgiveness — Not  Honouring  to  God — 
Sin,  not  Punishment,  greatest  Evil — Divine  Self-sacrifice  smites 
Root  of  Sin — Gradual  and  Final  Redemption. 

AMONG-  many  varying  methods  of  answering  the 
vital  question  of  the  soul,  there  is  one  which  I 
am  sincerely  desirous  of  presenting  in  its  best  and 
truest  form,  because  it  is  held  by  multitudes  to  be 
the  reply,  and  the  one  only  reply,  found  in  holy 
Scripture.  It  is  to  this  effect,  i  Sin  is  a  debt  to  the 
Almighty,  which  can  never  be  cancelled  by  man,  and 
which,  after  ages  of  punishment,  instead  of  being  les- 
sened, will  be  for  ever  and  ever  increasing.  But 
Christ,  by  his  death  on  the  cross  in  the  room  of  man, 
has  paid  the  debt  to  the  uttermost  farthing, — at  all 
events,  has  done  what  is  perfectly  equivalent,  and 
answers  the  same  purpose,  in  the  moral  government 
of  the  world.     Sin  is  a  burden  on  the  soul,  which 

^  Tlie  subject,  only  cursorily  touched  here,  is  fully  discussed  in 
its  various  bearings  in  the  succeeding  chapters. 


60  HUMAN   SIN. 


must  for  ever  weigh  it  down  to  perdition.  But  Christ 
has  taken  that  burden  on  himself ;  at  all  events,  has 
done  what  is  perfectly  equivalent,  and  answers  the 
same  purpose.  Sin  deserves,  and  must  bring  down, 
the  penalty  of  eternal  death,  eternal  exclusion  from 
God  and  from  all  good.  The  violated  law,  the 
outraged  justice  of  Grod,  and  the  security  of  moral 
government,  alike  demand  it.  But  Christ  has  vindi- 
cated the  moral  government  of  God,  magnified  the 
broken  law,  satisfied  divine  justice,  and  endured  the 
full  penalty  of  sin ;  at  all  events,  has  done  what  is 
perfectly  equivalent,  and  answers  the  same  purpose. 
And  now  God,  the  holy,  the  just,  and  the  true,  in 
entire  consistency  with  His  own  attributes,  with  all 
the  interests  of  the  universe,  and  with  the  security  of 
His  own  government,  not  only  can  freely  pardon,  but 
is  perfectly  willing  to  pardon,  and  only  waits  to  wel- 
come penitent  souls. 

The  great  fact  of  divine  forgiveness  is  unmistak- 
ably proclaimed  here ;  but  it  is  proclaimed,  as  some 
venture  to  judge,  in  a  singular  form.  It  seems  as 
if  wrought  into  an  elaborate  mosaic,  most  carefully 
designed,  compacted,  and  finished  in  all  its  details. 
The  thought,  too,  may  not  unnaturally  suggest  itself, 
that  this  peculiar  method  of  representing  a  purely 
spiritual  transaction  is  singularly  adapted  to  persons 
of  methodical  habits  and  tastes,  to  business  men  ac- 
customed to  the  calculations  and  the  order  of  com- 


HUMAN   SIN.  61 


mercial  life,  and,  in  general,  to  the  judicial,  legal 
type  of  soul.  There  is  yet  another  consideration: 
those  to  whom  the  announcements  are  addressed  are 
supposed,  at  the  moment,  to  be  possessed  with  fear, 
well-grounded  fear.  They  dread  the  righteous  anger 
of  Grod,  they  can  plead  no  excuse  for  their  violations 
of  His  law,  and  can  do  nothing  for  their  own  escape 
from  the  hands  of  justice.  But  here  is  a  plan,  laid 
out  and  completed,  which  perfectly  meets  everything 
which  can  be  urged  against  them. 

This  peculiarity  is  exceedingly  marked.  A  general 
assurance  of  pardon  from  the  lips  of  God  vrould  re- 
quire, on  the  part  of  man,  mere  trust,  simple  faith. 
But  it  is  not  so  here.  On  every  side,  not  only  expla- 
nation, but  most  full,  minute,  and  exact  explanation 
is  given.  God's  procedure  is  not  only  vindicated,  it 
is  demonstrated  to  be  correct,  politically,  judicially, 
even  commercially  correct,  in  every  point,  to  the  very 
letter.  Hence  amazement,  almost  indignation,  is  ex- 
pressed, when  a  thing  so  perfect  and  so  plain  is  called 
in  question.  "  What  more  can  you  desire  ?  it  is 
asked.  Your  debt  is  cancelled;  you  owe  nothing. 
Your  burden  is  laid  on  the  shoulders  of  another  ;  you 
are  free.  Your  punishment  has  been  endured ;  you 
have  nothing  to  fear.  God  has  provided  for  every- 
thing, and  you  have  only  to  accept  His  free  grace."  It 
seems  the  perfection  of  intelligibiUty  and  simplicity. 
It  fits  in  at  every  point  to  all  the  exigencies  of  the 


62  HUMAN   SIN, 


case,  like  a  wax  impression  to  tlie  seal  by  which  it  is 
made.  It  is  so  critically  balanced  and  adapted  and 
dovetailed,  that  you  can  discover  no  redundance  and 
no  defect,  no  chink  and  no  flaw.  Two  and  two  are 
four  is  not  more  conclusive,  more  sure.  It  is  all,  and 
more  than  aU,  that  the  most  scrupulous  or  the  most 
exacting  could  desire,  so  easily  understood,  yet  so 
perfect,  meeting  all  that  God  can  demand,  and 
answering  to  the  utmost  wants  and  wishes  of  the 
world. 

If  there  be  a  fault  here  at  all,  it  must  be  on  the 
side  of  perfection,  not  of  deficiency.  Dare  we  ask, 
is  it  not  too  perfect,  too  secure,  too. exact,  and  may 
it  not  be  on  this  very  account  more  human  than 
divine?  Is  the  suspicion  quite  inadmissible,  that 
it  may  owe  more  than  we  sometimes  imagine,  to 
human  ideas  of  construction,  and  to  human  modes 
of  making  out  and  filling  up  a  system?  When 
the  mind  is  allowed  to  throw  itself  fearlessly  and 
freely  over  it,  as  a  whole,  some  possibilities,  even 
probabilities,  amounting  to  all  but  certainties,  per- 
force, suggest  themselves.  That  reigning  thought 
of  compensation,  and  that  judicial,  almost  busi- 
ness-method of  dealing  with  spiritual  evil,  which 
are  so  prominent,  were  of  all  things  likely  to  be 
welcomed  by  a  Judaism,  itself  corrupt  and  pre- 
pared to  yield  to  the  infection  of  surrounding  Pa- 
ganism.    Still  further,  they  could  not  be  distasteful 


HUMAN    SIN.  63 


in  the  ages  which  witnessed  not  only  the  germs, 
but  the  early  blossomings  of  the  futm^e  dogmas, 
of  indulgence,  and  penance,  and  satisfaction,  when 
sins  were  weighed  and  measured,  and  had  their 
fixed  price,  in  suffering  or  in  money,  or  in  both. 
Besides,  they  met  the  strong,  distinctive  taste  of  the 
times  of  Ambrose  and  Jerome,  the  era  of  holy  places, 
relics,  pilgrimages,  of  monachism,  fastings,  scourg- 
ings,  and  all  voluntary  self -inflictions.  They  were 
in  harmony  with  the  entire  spirit  and  genius  and 
usages  of  the  Papacy,  with  its  greed  of  outward 
material  guarantees  and  symbols,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  its  ritual  and  dogmatic  punctiliousness,  on  the 
other  hand.  They  distinctly  suited  the  character- 
istic tendencies  of  individual  celebrities  in  all  the 
ages, — say,  of  such  a  man  as  Augustin,  whether  we 
look  to  the  peculiar  cast  of  his  mind,  or  to  his 
early  personal  history ;  or  of  such  a  man  as  An- 
selm,  the  head  of  fully-developed  scholasticism ;  or 
even  of  the  early  reformers,  several  of  whom  were 
worshippers  of  Aristotle  and  masters  of  logic.  Last 
of  all,  in  times  of  deep  and  wide-spread  barbarism, 
among  the  masses  of  the  European  people,  when 
kings,  and  nobles,  and  soldiers  were  utterly  un- 
taught, but  chivalrously  honourable  and  valiant, 
according  to  the  code  then  accepted,  it  is  not  hard 
to  see,  that  an  artificial  and  very  formally  perfect 
scJieme  of  salvation,  simply  as  such,  but  still  more 


64  HUMAN   SIN. 


as  based  on  the  material  idea  of  compensation  and 
satisfaction,  on  the  exact  adjustment  of  divine  and 
human  claims,  on  the  maintenance  of  the  untar- 
nished honour  of  the  Most  High,  on  the  satisfac- 
tion of  stern  justice,  and  on  the  palpable  ground 
of  judicial,  even  commercial  proceedings,  must  have 
commended  itself  with  extraordinary  force.  It  did, 
and  all  the  earlier,  as  well  as  later  protesters  against 
Kome,  carried  with  them  much  of  this  distinguish- 
ing element  of  Koman  doctrine.  Is  it  unreasonable 
to  conceive,  that  it  may  be  owing  to  kindred  influ- 
ences that  the  idea  has  been  so  long,  and  is  still  most 
devoutly  retained  by  good  and  wise  men  ? 

"A  God  all  mercy  were  a  God  unjust."  The 
Almighty  is  infinitely  righteous,  and  infinitely 
faithful  to  His  character,  to  His  law,  and  to  the 
interests  of  His  moral  government.  But  suppose 
an  individual  to  be  thoroughly  satisfied  of  these 
positions,  and  convinced,  besides,  that  God  can 
never  forgive  sin,  except  in  perfect  consistency  with 
His  character.  His  government,  and  His  law,  and 
yet,  at  the  same  time,  to  be  able,  on  the  authority 
of  Scripture,  to  trust  simply  in  divine  pardon,  quite 
unaided  by  any  details  of  explanation.  Wherein  lies 
the  difi'erence  between  him  and  his  fellow-Chris- 
tians? Is  it  not  in  this  mainly — indeed,  in  this 
entirely  and  only  ?  that  he  has  not  found,  as  they 
profess  to   have  found  in  the  New  Testament,  an 


HUMAN    SIN.  65 


explanation,  and  that  he  does  not  even  think  it 
becoming  or  wise  to  seek  an  explanation  of  the 
way  in  which  forgiveness  is  supposed  to  be  proved 
consistent  with  equity  and  with  law — the  way  in 
which,  it  is  alleged,  sin  is  expiated,  justice  satis- 
fied, and  the  honour  of  God  upheld.  He  has  not 
the  shadow  of  a  doubt  that  forgiveness  is  perfectly 
consistent  with  divine  rectitude  and  divine  law, 
but  he  does  not  see  or  appreciate  the  way  in  which, 
it  is  said,  this  consistency  is  exhibited,  and  he  is 
convinced  that  others  are  mistaken  in  imagining 
that  they  see  this  way.  The  great  underlying 
truths,  divine  forgiveness  and  divine  righteousness, 
are  precisely  the  same  to  both.  The  sole  difference 
is  this,  that  the  one  professes  to  understand  the  de- 
tails of  the  plan  of  Heaven,  the  other  does  not ;  the 
one  thinks  he  has  discovered  the  grounds  of  God's 
procedure,  the  other  is  ignorant,  and  content  to  be 
ignorant,  of  them. 

Apart  from  any  knowledge  of  what  is  commonly 
styled  "  the  way  of  salvation,"  it  may  be  humbly  but 
firmly  believed,  on  the  testimony  of  the  Sacred  Scrip- 
tures, that  the  infinitely  holy  and  just  and  wise  is 
also  the  forgiving  and  loving  God.  By  the  one  true 
sacrifice  made  by  God  for  men,  when  He  incarnated 
Himself  in  His  only-begotten  Son,  Jesus  Christ,  by 
the  unutterable  love  unveiled  in  that  Incarnation, 
and  in  the  whole  life,  and  in  the  cross  of  the  Incar- 


66  HUMAN    SIN. 


nate,  by  the  words  and  the  acts  and  the  meek 
endurances  and  the  outbreathing  spirit  of  Jesus, 
and  by  the  secret,  inward  working  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  his  heart,  a  man  shall  come  to  place  a 
simple  trust  in  divine  forgiveness,  as  profound  as  his 
nature  is  capable  of  putting  forth.  He  shall  see  that 
the  great  Father  of  the  soul  only  seeks  its  return  to 
Himself,  and  only  waits  to  respond  to  the  first  look 
it  casts  back,  the  first  relenting  thought,  the  first 
stirring  of  desire  towards  the  home  and  the  heart 
above.  He  asks,  he  wants  no  more  than  this.  Any- 
thing beyond,  which  some  have  professed  to  discover, 
only  complicates  to  him,  and  confuses,  a  divine  sim- 
plicity, darkens  his  notions  of  truth  and  of  God,  and 
throws  his  mind  into  the  deepest  perplexity.  The 
supposed  revelation  of  a  plan,  such  as  has  been 
imagined,  associates  itself  in  his  mind  invincibly 
with  what  is  not  only  not  worthy  of  God,  but  is  very 
dishonouring. 

Grace,  which  is  purchased  and  paid  for,  must 
lose  not  only  its  special  beauty,  but  even  its 
essential  worth.  There  may  be  exceeding  loving- 
kindness  in  the  effort  to  secure  the  purchase,  but 
when  the  price  has  been  duly  paid  down,  and  when 
what  remains  is  a  simple  act  of  justice,  we  look  in 
vain  for  the  subduing  element  of  pure  love.  A  cre- 
ditor may  be  at  the  utmost  pains  to  find  a  substitute 
who  shall  advance  payment  of  a  debt;   but  if  the 


HUMAN    SIN.  67 


debt  be  fully  cancelled,  the  debtor  is  free,  not  by 
grace,  but  by  justice.  An  injured  person  may  in- 
terest himself  exceedingly  in  the  wrong-doer,  and 
may  labour  to  find  some  third  party  who  shall  be 
willing  to  bear  his  punishment ;  but  if  ample  com- 
pensation for  the  injury  has  been  made,  and  if  the 
fullest  satisfaction  has  been  rendered  to  all  the  de- 
mands of  justice  and  of  law,  it  can  be  no  grace  to  set 
the  wrong-doer  free, — he  is  free  by  right.  Is  it  not 
more  beautiful,  more  noble,  more  honouring  to  God, 
to  be  conquered  by  His  unveiled  love  in  the  Incar- 
nation and  the  cross ;  to  rely  upon  it,  without  a 
question,  and  to  trust  in  pure,  mere  spontaneous 
grace,  rather  than  in  grace  purchased,  explained, 
vindicated,  and  demonstrated  to  be  all  consistent. 

It  is  imagined  that  the  forgiveness  of  sin  is  a  thing 
of  transcendent  difficulty,  a  difficulty  so  great  that 
it  almost  baffled  even  God  to  surmount  it.  I  ven- 
ture to  assert  that  there  is  not  a  sohtary  text  which 
conveys,  or  even  favours,  this  idea.  If  there  be 
meaning  in  the  New  Testament,  it  is,  of  all  things, 
clear  and  sure  that  God  is  infinitely  willing  to  for- 
give the  wickedest  human  being  that  lives.  Wher- 
ever difficulty  may  lie,  at  least  it  does  not  lie  here. 
Thinking  so  much,  as  many  do,  of  mere  pardon  and 
its  difficulties,  they  forget  that  pardon  is  not  salva- 
tion :  not  at  all.  There  is  a  far  sterner  obstruction 
in  the  way  of  the  real  deliverance  of  the  human 


GS  HUMAN    SIN. 


spirit,  an  obstruction  which  only  God  can  remove 
in  His  holy  love,  but  which  must  be  removed,  if 
the  soul  is  to  be  saved.  Were  mere  pardon  of  sin 
secured,  the  whole  of  what  constitutes  inner  salvation 
would  still  remain  to  be  achieved.  If  all  the  past 
were  blotted  out  from  God's  remembrance,  the  man 
would  be  as  unredeemed  as  ever.  It  is  his  nature, 
and  not  the  facts  of  his  history,  that  require  to  be,  or 
that  can  be,  changed.  There  is  a  deadly  evil  work- 
ing within,  and  it  is  from  this  he  must  be  saved,  if 
he  is  to  be  saved  at  all.  A  true  salvation  is  not 
escape  from  the  consequences  of  sin  present  or  re- 
mote; it  is  not  this  at  all;  it  is  only  and  whoUy 
deliverance  from  sin  itself,  from  that  deep,  internal 
cause  which  entails  such  consequences,  be  they  what 
they  may.  The  root  of  perdition  in  the  soul  must  be 
struck  at  and  destroyed ;  and  only  in  so  far  as  this  is 
struck,  and  no  farther,  is  real  safety  achieved.  The 
self-will  in  resistance  to  the  divine  will,  the  false 
bias  of  the  spiritual  nature,  the  conscious,  voluntary 
want  of  harmony  with  truth  and  right  and  love  and 
God,  this  is  a  true  death,  if  there  were  none  else  in 
the  future.  This  is  eternal  death  begun.  To  have 
life  planted,  where  this  death  has  reigned,  is  true 
salvation, — nothing  else  is. 

Mere  selfish  protection  is  not  the  chief  want  of 
a  genuine  soul.  The  very  lowest,  the  weakest  and 
the  least  noble  thing  we  can  do,  is  to  beg  for  escape 


HUMAN   SIN.  G9 


from  the  proper  desert  of  evil.  This  may  not  be 
vice,  but  it  is  still  less  virtue,  and  has  nothing 
great,  nothing  exalting,  nothing  purifying  in  it. 
Selfish  fear  is  a  contemptible,  degrading,  and  en- 
feebling emotion,  and  by  making  so  much  of  this 
principle,  by  encouraging  and  pampering  and  almost 
honouring  it,  the  danger  is  that  we  emasculate 
religion  in  its  very  birth.  To  an  enlightened, 
awakened,  and  thoroughly  earnest  man,  the  great 
and  stern  reality  is  this,  that  he  has  deeply  wronged 
his  God,  and  as  deeply  wronged  his  own  being. 
God  endowed  him  with  a  spiritual  nature,  gave  it 
sacredly  into  his  charge,  and  he  is  conscious  that 
he  has  neglected  and  injured  it,  perhaps  irrepar- 
ably, injured  it  by  separating  it  from  the  one 
source  of  purity  and  life  and  joy.  He  is  away  from 
his  God,  in  thought  and  in  affection,  and  this  wilful 
severance,  he  has  come  to  know,  is  death  to  his 
higher  self.  He  is  all  wrong,  utterly  wrong,  wrong 
in  relation  to  God  and  wrong  in  relation  to  himself. 
What  he  most  needs,  is  not  to  be  pardoned;  that 
may  be  his  first,  but  it  ought  to  be  his  least  con- 
cern, respecting  which  there  is  no  reasonable  ground 
for  fear  or  doubt ;  what  he  most  needs  is,  not  to  be 
pardoned  merely,  but  to  be  changed  in  himself,  to 
be  set  really  right,  his  face  and  his  heart  turned 
towards  God,  converted  to  God. 

The  germ  of  new  divine  life  in  any  human  mind 


70  HUMAN    SIN. 


is  trust,  a  penitent  turning  of  the  heart  to  God,  a 
simple,  humble  faith  in  God's  forgiveness.  This  is 
the  early  promise  and  the  cause  of  a  profound 
change  within.  This  is  saving  faith;  not  because 
it  secures  a  formal  legal  acquittal  from  the  Great 
Judge,  about  which  we  know  and  can  know  nothing, 
but  on  a  far  more  intelligible  and  true  ground,  be- 
cause it  really  saves  our  nature,  turns  it  right  away 
from  the  death  which  it  was  confronting  and  right 
towards  God,  who  is  our  only  life.  In  the  New 
Testament  faith  is  called  the  justifying,  that  is, 
the  rectifying,  the  rightening  principle,  because  it 
literally  and  thoroughly  rightens,  sets  right  the 
soul,  which  before  was  utterly  wrong.  The  humbled, 
penitent  nature  is  drawn  back,  and  of  itself  turns 
back,  converts — ^to  use  the  very  word  of  inspiration 
and  in  the  very  sense  which  inspiration  gives  it — 
to  God.  "For  what  law  could  not  do  in  that  it 
was  weak  through  the  flesh,  God" — has  done — 
"  sending  His  own  Son  in  the  likeness  of  sinful 
flesh,  and  for  sin  has  condemned" — doomed,  killed 
— "sin  in  the  flesh."  The  flesh,  the  carnal  will 
was  proof  against  mere  law,  mere  authority,  and 
trampled  it  under  foot.  The  voice  of  command, 
even  though  it  were  God's,  was  powerless,  and  the 
flesh  proudly  triumphed  over  it.  But  the  voice  of 
love  is  omnipotent.  Incarnate,  crucified  love  over- 
masters sin  in  the  flesh,  condemns  it,  dooms  it  to 


HUMAN   SIN.  71 


death,  kills  it  outright.  The  first  stroke  of  this 
divine  weapon  is  mortal,  and  the  final  victory, 
though  won  by  slow  degrees,  is  infallibly  cer- 
tain. 

The  mightiest  antagonist  of  human  sin,  and  its 
surest  conqueror,  is  that  divine  power,  a  purely 
spiritual  power,  which  concentrates  itself  in  the  In- 
carnation and  the  cross,  that  divine  influence  which 
descends,  through  these,  on  the  hearts  of  men.  In 
the  ISTew  Testament,  this  power  is  represented  in 
manifold  forms,  but  ever  with  the  same  essential 
meaning.  It  is  light,  it  is  life,  it  is  peace,  it  is  a 
guiding  star  of  hope,  it  is  a  healing  balm ;  and  in 
one  exquisitely  beautiful  and  simple  passage,  it  is 
described  as  a  cleansing  virtue.  "If  we  walk  in  the 
light,  as  He  is  in  the  light,  then  have  we  fellowship 
one  with  another  " — God  with  us,  and  we  with  God 
— "  and  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  His  Son  clean- 
seth  " — is  ever  cleansing — "  us  from  all  sin."  "  If  we 
say  we  have  no  sin,  we  deceive  ourselves  ; "  ever  and 
again  we  are  drawn  down  into  darkness,  we  fall  into 
sin,  and  fellowship  with  the  luminous  and  the  holy 
is  for  the  time  impossible.  But  there  is  a  power, 
streaming  from  the  cross  into  the  soul,  which  is 
ever  washing  it  afresh ;  bidding  away  the  darkness  ; 
cleansing  out  the  evil ;  renewing  the  holy  fellowship ; 
and  restoring  us  to  God.  In  a  world  full  of  pollu- 
tion, and,  for  human  hearts,  ever  prone  to  evil,  and 


HUMAN-    SIN. 


often  actually  darkened  and  defiled,  there  is  one 
mysterious  and  mighty  institute  of  purification.  It 
is  symbolised  in  the  cross.  Love,  the  love  of  God, 
is  the  spiritual  antidote  to  human  sin,  but  not  love 
alone,  and  not  even  God's  love,  simply  as  such,  but 
self-sacrificing  love,  incarnate,  crucified  love, — love 
which  has  wept  over  men,  which  has  groaned,  and 
bled,  and  died  for  men — love  streaming  out  in  the 
life-blood  of  the  Loving  One.  It  is  a  fact,  not  a 
dogma,  the  fact  of  profoundest,  mental  experience, 
which  lies  in  these  inspired  words — "  The  blood  of 
Jesus  Christ,  God's  Son,  is  cleansing  us  from  all 
sin."  It  is,  it  ever  is,  cleansing  us — a  present,  in- 
vincible virtue  goes  forth  from  it  to  beget  in  us  a 
wonderful  abhorrence  of  evil,  and  a  wonderful  long- 
ing for  purity,  and  to  renew  the  defiled  soul  to 
humble,  loving  obedience.  It  was  this  which  first 
overmastered  the  stubborn  will,  and  drew  it  to  the 
feet  of  God;  and  it  is  this  which,  ever  and  ever, 
unveils  to  spiritual  vision  the  dark  atrocity  of  all  sin, 
and  the  nobility  and  beauty  of  all  goodness.  There 
is  here  no  nominal,  formal  acquittal  from  charges 
which,  nevertheless,  abide  just ;  there  is  no  imagin- 
ary, judicial  whitening  of  a  surface  which,  under- 
neath, is  as  foul  as  ever.  But  there  is  a  real,  a 
thorough,  and  a  deep  washing  out  of  sin  itself,  and 
making  the  heart  literally  clean  and  pure.  In  the 
light  of  this  fact  of  earthly  experience,  we  may 


HUMAN   SIN.  73 


better  understand  the  destined  course  of  the  heavenly- 
life  to  come.  A  divine  beauty  and  an  infinite  mean- 
ing gleam  forth  to  us  from  the  words  of  the  anthem 
of  eternity — "  Unto  Him  that  loved  us,  and  ivaslied 
us  from  our  sins  in  His  own  blood,  and  hath  made 
us  kings  and  priests  unto  God,  even  His  Father — 
unto  Him  be  glory  and  dominion,  for  ever  and  ever. 
Amenl" 


CHAPTEE  III. 


SPIRITUAL    LAWS. 


Their  Sphere — Material  Laws — Not  Eternal  and  not  Necessary — 
Ordained  by  God — Spiritual  Laws  Immutable — In  Harmony 
with  Will  of  God — Their  Ground — Human  Laws — Need  Vin- 
dication and  Support — Self-sustaining  Law — Sin  and  Death 
— Holiness  and  Life — Divine  Sacrifice — Destroys  Sin — Saves 
the  SouL 


LAW  is  the  expression  of  will,  and  has  its  ground 
in  authority.  Authority,  supposing  adequate 
power,  ultimately  rests  on  rectitude  and  wisdom. 
Intelligence  demands,  and,  in  union  with  power, 
secures  order,  not  chance ;  fixed  order,  not  irregu- 
larity and  uncertainty ;  righteous  and  wise  methods 
directed  to  righteous  and  wise  results.  The  universe 
of  matter  and  of  mind  is  stable,  in  the  reign  of 
divine  laws.  Life  and  light,  beautiful  and  glorious 
in  themselves,  are  resplendent  in  the  laws  which  go  to 
their  production  and  govern  all  their  phenomena.  In 
the  physical  region,  no  resistance  is  possible,  and  law 
reigns  serenely  andr  supremely.  But  in  the  spiritual 
sphere,  the  created  will  has  run  counter  to  the  divine 
will,  and  darkness  and  death  have  supplanted  light 
and  life.  The  spiritual  universe  has  witnessed  de- 
fiance of  law,  on  the  one  side,  and  an  intervention 
above  law,  on  the  other  side. 

There  are  two  great  facts,  in  all  time,  Incarnation 
and  human  sin,  which,  on  opposite  grounds,  stand 
out  from  the  sphere  of  established  order.  The  first 
transcends  all  laws,  material  and  spiritual.     It  vio- 


SPIRITUAL   LAWS. 


lates  none,  it  crosses  the  path  of  none,  for  it  is  alone, 
in  a  region  of  its  own,  beyond  the  range  of  so-called 
law.  It  is  a  solitary,  independent  act  of  the  Great 
Lawgiver,  with  which  no  power  or  will  but  His 
has  a  right  to  intermeddle.  Human  sin,  on  the 
other  hand,  has  erected  itseK  within  the  kingdom, 
which  is  subject  to  the  laws  of  spirit  and  of  matter. 
But  it  is  an  anomaly  in  that  kingdom,  a  foreign  and 
hostile  intrusion ;  and,  so  far  as  it  extends,  it  aims 
to  defy  established  authority,  and  to  disown  and  cast 
off  all  subjection,  and  is  outside  the  sphere  within 
which  law  reigns.  Nothing  can  ever  explain  or 
account  for  sin.  It  is  disorganisation,  rebellion, 
disease.  Its  radical  idea  is  that  it  is  inexplicable, 
because  a  violation  of  all  rational  order  and  of  all 
right  principles.  Incarnation  is  supernatural ;  hu- 
man sin  is  unnatural,  or  anti-natural.  The  one 
transcends,  the  other  overthrows,  law;  the  one 
comes  down  from  above,  in  the  majesty  of  light 
and  love,  the  other  comes  up  out  of  the  nether 
darkness,  like  a  fetid  vapour,  a  pestilential  breath 
from  the  bottomless  pit.  But  a  profound  relation 
enwraps  these  two  antagonistic  powers  in  its  em- 
brace,— the  transcendental  is  the  subverter,  the 
divinely-selected  subverter  of  the  infernal  mystery. 

The  one  fact  on  which  our  thoughts  are  now 
to  be  concentrated  is  this  —  that,  in  spite  of  what 
transcends  their  range,  on  the  one  side,  and  of  what 


SPIRITUAL    LAWS.  79 

seems,  but  only  seems,  to  trample  them  down  on  the 
other  side,  spiritual  laws  are  mighty,  are  almighty. 
They  cannot  be  violated,  cannot  even  be  resisted, 
that  is,  with  impunity,  and  without  exacting  an 
incipient  and  immediate  satisfaction.  The  reign  of 
law,  in  all  the  departments  of  the  material  creation, 
is  proclaimed  with  extraordinary  confidence,  by 
those  who  have  devoted  themselves  to  the  study  of 
physics.  "  The  order  of  nature "  is  the  chosen 
phrase  to  denote  a  fixity  which  is  imagined  to  be 
unlimited  in  extent  and  absolutely  immovable. 
But  equal  confidence  is  not  felt  in  the  universality 
and  supremacy  of  spiritual  laws.  Very  far  other- 
wise. And  yet,  if  there  be  a  ground  of  hesitation 
at  all,  it  will  not  be  hard  to  make  out,  that  it 
is,  at  least,  stronger  on  the  material,  than  on  the 
spiritual  side. 

The  course  of  nature  in  the  past  is  ascertainable 
within  certain  limits.  So  far  as  observation  can  reach, 
in  all  the  various  departments,  we  are  able  to  discover 
invariable  sequence  ;  and  it  is  perfectly  reasonable  to 
presume  that  what  has  thus  been,  will  indefinitely  con- 
tinue to  be.  That  is  the  presumption,  a  most  legiti- 
mate presumption;  that  is  the  probability,  a  high 
and  strong  probability.  But  to  maintain  that  what 
has  been  must  be  and  cannot  but  be ;  in  other  words, 
to  convert  a  presumption,  a  probability  into  a 
necessity,  the  contrary  of  which  would  be  impossi- 


80  SPIRITUAL  LAWS. 

ble,  is  a  gross  error.  Manifestly,  the  premises  do 
not  sustain  tlie  conclusion,  the  reasoning  is  false  at 
the  root.  What  has  been  is  certain,  but  it  is  no 
whit  less  clear,  that  what  shall  be,  cannot,  to  us,  be 
absolutely  certain.  No  amount  of  experience  in  the 
past  can  render  a  divergence  from  the  hitherto  ob- 
served order,  however  improbable,  either  contradic- 
tory or  impossible — impossible,  that  is  to  say,  in  the 
nature  of  things.  That  which  is  neither  contradic- 
tory nor  impossible  may  take  place,  and  however 
strong  the  presumption  against  it  be,  we  can  never 
be  rationally  certain  that  a  fact  directly  opposed  to 
our  past  experience  shall  not  arise  to  confound 
anticipation,  and  to  overturn,  in  that  instance,  the 
idea  of  the  inviolable  uniformity  of  nature.  Who- 
ever beheves,  I  say,  not  in  an  Incarnation,  but  in  a 
Creation,  has  in  this  realised  the  vastest  departure 
possible  from  antecedent  uniformity.  Admitting  the 
greater,  it  would  be  in  the  face  of  all  reason  to  deny 
the  possibility,  or  sufficient  evidence  being  produced, 
the  reality  of  the  less.  Credulity,  ignorant,  in  dis- 
criminating reception  of  what  contradicts  ordinary 
experience,  is  a  culpable  weakness,  but  illogical, 
arrogant,  almost  fanatical  devotion  to  the  idea  of 
necessity  in  the  order  of  nature  is  more  criminal 
still,  if  not  more  weak. 

The  laws  of  the  material  universe  are  infinitely 
wise  and  good,   but   they   are   not   in    themselves 


SPIRITUAL   LAWS.  81 

necessary  and  immutable,  even  as  they  are  not 
eternal.  The  consistent  Theist,  who  holds  them  to 
be  the  very  wisest  and  best  possible,  is  satisfied,  at 
the  same  time,  that  there  are  ten  thousand  con- 
ceivable arrangements,  which  might,  without  any 
contradiction,  have  taken  the  place  of  those  now 
existing.  The  number,  the  magnitudes,  the  dis- 
tances of  the  stars,  the  size  of  our  globe,  its  place  in 
the  solar  system,  the  substances  of  which  it  is  com- 
posed, chemical  proportions,  affinities  and  combina- 
tions and  their  results,  the  mineral,  vegetable, 
irrational,  and  rational  kingdoms,  all  might  have 
been  other  than  they  are,  without  any  contradiction, 
had  it  so  pleased  the  Creator. 

It  is  far  otherwise,  it  is  diametrically  the  reverse, 
with  the  great  laws  of  the  spiritual  universe.  They 
are  what  they  are,  of  themselves,  of  necessity.  Moral 
good  and  moral  evil  are  immutable,  and  never  were 
and  never  can  be  other  than  they  are,  in  the  slightest 
degree.  Veracity,  fidelity,  rectitude,  purity,  loving- 
ness,  are  for  ever  good,  and  their  opposites  are  for 
ever  bad.  To  all  rightly  constituted  moral  beings, 
everywhere  and  always,  they  are  unchangeably  the 
same.  Altogether  apart  from  any  choice  or  judg- 
ment external  to  them,  these  qualities  are  for  ever 
good,  and  their  opposites  are  for  ever  bad.  It  lies 
in  the  essential,  eternal  nature  of  things  that  they 
are  what  they  are,  and  could  never  have  been,  and 


PIRITUAL   LAWS. 


never  can  be  different.  The  distinction  is  as  wide 
as  it  is  possible  to  conceive.  The  laws  of  nature 
are  owing  solely  to  the  will  and  the  fiat  of  the 
Creator.  He  ordained  them,  and  had  such  been 
His  pleasure  they  might  have  been  altered  in  ten 
thousand  ways.  But  the  laws  of  the  spiritual 
universe  do  not  depend  even  on  the  highest  will. 
The  Great  God  did  not  make  them,  they  are  eternal 
as  He  is.  The  Great  God  could  not  repeal  them, 
they  are  immutable  as  He  is.  In  perfect  harmony 
with  the  divine  will,  they  are  nevertheless  indepen- 
dent even  of  it,  and  as  they  were  not  created,  so 
they  cannot  be  annulled  or  altered,  even  by  the 
Almighty. 

Truthfulness  is  admitted  to  be  a  virtue,  a  spiritual 
excellence,  a  beautiful,  exalting,  noble  characteristic 
of  a  responsible  being.  Untruthfulness  is  admitted 
to  be  a  vice,  a  corrupting,  degrading,  mean  quality 
in  a  soul.  But  let  us  understand  the  force  of  the 
admission.  Are  these  things  so,  because  God  has 
enjoined  the  virtue  and  forbidden  the  vice?  By 
any  opposite  utterance,  from  Creator  or  creature, 
might  truthfulness  have  become  vice,  and  untruth- 
fulness virtue?  It  is  impossible  to  believe  that, 
to  any  rightly  constituted  rational  and  moral  being, 
these  qualities  can  be  other  than  they  are  in  them- 
selves. Simple,  perfect  truthfulness  is  necessarily, 
eternally    virtue ;     untruthfulness     is     necessarily, 


SPIRITUAL   LAWS.  S3 

eternally  vice.  These  qualities  are  owing  to  no 
arrangement,  no  command,  no  will  of  any  creature. 
Even  the  divine  w^ill  is  not  their  ground.  They 
rest  immovably  upon  their  own  foundation,  inde- 
pendently of  all  authority  or  judgment  besides. 
And  this  conclusion  bears  with  equal  force  on  all 
spiritual  excellences  whatever  and  their  opposite 
vices.  Eectitude,  purity,  lovingness,  piety  towards 
God,  reverence,  submission,  self-surrender,  love,  are 
beautiful  and  good  in  themselves;  they  are  beauti- 
ful and  good,  unchangeably,  eternally;  they  have 
their  ground  in  the  essential  constitution  of  moral 
being,  and  are  thus  separated  by  an  impassable  line 
from  all  material  properties  and  laws,  for  these  are 
not  in  themselves  unalterable,  not  eternal,  not  neces- 
sary, and  the  God  who  in  wisdom  ordained  them 
might,  had  it  so  pleased  Him,  have  instituted  a 
different  code  of  regulative  principles. 

Spiritual  laws,  widely  distinguished  from  material 
laws,  are  separated  by  a  still  vaster  difference,  from 
merely  human  ordinances  and  arrangements.  The 
laws  of  men  are  different,  at  different  times  and  in 
different  countries,  are  often  altered,  often  repealed. 
It  is  a  necessity  of  their  origin,  that  they  must  be 
more  or  less  unwise  and  unjust.  As  the  work  of 
imperfect  beings,  they  must  at  the  best  be  imper- 
fect, and  must  need  to  be  constantly  reviewed  and 
improved.     There  is  indeed  a  majesty,  a  sanctity, 


84  SPIRITUAL   LAWS. 

even  in  human  law,  as  the  collective  wisdom  and 
conscience  of  a  nation  and  an  age.  With  all  its 
imperfections,  this  is  among  the  highest  and 
sacred(*st  of  human  tilings,  and  the  bulwark  of 
society  against  injustice  and  universal  anarchy. 
For  the  sake  of  the  interests  of  all,  it  is  indispen-' 
sable  that  human  laws  be  respected,  and  when 
broken,  be  vindicated  and  avenged.  A  law  set  at 
nought  with  impunity,  or  so  inconstantly  and  feebly 
enforced,  that  the  chances  of  escape  or  punishment 
are  nearly  equally  balanced,  becomes  a  dead  letter, 
affording  no  protection  to  the  virtuous,  and  inspir- 
ing the  vicious  with  no  salutary  terror. 

There  is  another  consideration  still ;  with  the 
wisest  and  most  righteous  of  human  ordinances, 
it  will  happen  that  the  innocent  are  punished,  and 
that  the  guilty,  by  one  means  or  another,  escape 
detection  or  conviction.  At  the  best,  there  is  an 
inevitable  uncertainty  in  them,  a  doubtfulness  and 
a  degree  of  untrustworthiness,  which  tend  to  shake 
confidence  and  materially  to  weaken  the  founda- 
tions of  authority.  On  this  account,  the  laws  of 
men,  in  all  that  is  manifestly  right,  need  the  utmost 
possible  support.  Wherever  guilt  is  clearly  estab- 
lished human  justice  must  take  its  course,  unless 
the  dearest  interests  of  society  are  to  be  wantonly 
sacrificed. 

But  on  no  such  grounds  as  these,  nor  on  any 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  So 


other  grounds  whatever,  do  spiritual  ordinances 
need  or  admit  of  either  vindication,  or  protection, 
or  support  from  human  or  divine  hands.  Defender 
or  avenger  they  have  none,  and  they  need  none. 
Without  aid  from  any  quarter  they  avenge  them- 
selves, and  exact,  and  continue  without  fail  to  exact 
so  long  as  the  evil  remains,  the  amount  of  penalty 
— visible  and  invisible — to  the  veriest  jot  and  tittle, 
which  the  deed  of  violation  deserves.  Essentially 
and  perfectly  wise  and  right,  they  are  irresistible, 
in  the  case  of  the  obedient  and  the  rebellious 
alike.  There  is  no  formal  trial  of  the  criminal, 
there  is  no  need  for  investigating  the  question  and 
determining  the  amount  of  guilt  or  of  innocence. 
Without  inquiry  and  without  effort  each  case  dis- 
covers and  exposes  itself.  No  judicial  verdict  is 
pronounced,  and  no  officer  of  justice  is  appointed 
to  carry  out  the  sentence,  but  at  once,  punishment 
or  reward,  visible  or  invisible,  or  both,  dispenses 
itself,  and  in  the  amount  in  which  either  is 
merited.  Spiritual  laws  are  self-acting ;  with  all 
their  penalties  and  sanctions  they  are  immediately 
self-acting,  and  without  the  remotest  possibility  of 
failure  or  mistake. 

Sin  is  death — holiness  is  life ;  these  brief  sen- 
tences, taken  out  of  inspired  Scripture,  are  a  con- 
densation of  the  code  of  the  spiritual  universe. 
They  constitute  the  basis  of  the  reigning  principles 


86  SPIRITUAL  LAWS. 


of  the  divine  moral  administration,  tliey  are  with- 
out limit,  without  exception,  and  are  absolutely 
irresistible.  But  it  must  be  noted,  that  they  are 
not  so  much  sanctions  ordained  by  God,  as  simple 
statements  of  fact,  the  statement  of  an  eternal  fact, 
embodying  the  literal  history  of  all  the  past,  and 
a  predictive  announcement  of  all  the  future,  for 
ever  and  ever.  Sin  is  death — holiness  is  life;  the 
fact  is  so,  and  the  law  of  moral  being  is  promul- 
gated in  the  fact.  The  forces  of  the  spiritual 
universe,  like  the  attributes  of  the  Eternal  mind, 
are  absolutely  independent  and  seK-sufficient.  The 
Great  Being  did  not  elect  that  this  and  that  per- 
fection should  enrich  His  nature ;  they  did  enrich 
it  from  eternity  and  are  coeval  with  Himself.  God 
did  not  elect  and  ordain  that  sin  should  be  death, 
and  that  holiness  should  be  life,  when,  but  for  this 
ordination,  they  might  have  been  something  else. 
In  itself,  sin  is  death ;  in  itself,  holiness  is  life — 
must  be  so,  cannot  be  anything  else,  and  must  be 
this.  It  is  a  necessary,  eternal  fact,  independent 
of  all  beings  and  all  things.  But  in  a  case  of 
unutterable  importance,  where  ignorance  or  mistake 
would  have  been  everlastingly  fatal,  God  has  been 
at  pains  to  set  the  fact  before  His  rational  creatures, 
and  to  invest  it  with  the  solemnity  of  a  direct  and 
repeated  message  from  His  throne,  and  with  all 
the   authority  of   His   express   sanction.      First  of 


SPIRITUAL  LAWS.  87 

all,  it  is  written  witliin  every  soul  of  man,  for  the 
voice  is  divine  which  we  hear,  in  the  depths  of 
our  spiritual  nature,  and  it  is  a  divine  witness 
who  makes  His  appeal  to  us,  in  the  conscious 
effects  of  evil  in  ourselves,  and  its  visible  con- 
sequences on  others  around  and  in  the  general 
world.  And  then,  it  is  a  divine  authority  which 
utters  itself  emphatically  and  clearly  in  the  holy 
volume.  The  great  laws  of  the  moral  universe 
are  there  announced  in  a  thousand  passages  and  in 
varying  Forms,  as  the  substance  and  the  sum,  the 
meaning  and  the  spirit  of  all  revelation. 

Truthfulness,  rectitude,  purity,  lovingness,  and 
all  the  virtues,  reverence  of  God,  submission,  self- 
surrender,  and  love  to  Him  and  all  godly  principles 
and  affections,  constitute  the  true  life  of  a  respon- 
sible soul.  They  not  only  belong  to  it,  but  they 
are  the  essential  constituents  of  its  vitality;  they 
are  the  life-blood  of  a  created  spirit,  and  to  touch 
any  of  them  is  to  affect  the  very  seat  and  spring 
of  vitality.  The  slightest  admission  of  evil — con- 
scious, voluntary  evil — is  a  direct  assault  on  soul- 
life.  It  is  like  impurity,  taint  in  the  blood;  it 
is  soul-death  begun — a  commencing  process  of  dis- 
order, pollution,  disease,  whose  only  issue,  unless 
it  be  stopped,  is  death.  We  are  accustomed  to 
think  of  crime  perpetrated,  and  then,  perhaps  long 
after,  of  punishment  adjudicated  and  inflicted.     But 


88  SPIllITUAL   LAWS- 


moral  evil  and  death,  and,  equally  so,  holiness  and 
life,  are  perfectly  simultaneous.  Not  that  the 
punishment  of  sin  is  the  work  of  a  moment. 
There  is  an  entail  of  moral,  it  may  be  even  of  phy- 
sical punishment,  which  is  prolonged  so  long  as 
its  cause  abides,  and  which  can  be  cut  off,  not 
always  even  by  the  extirjDation  of  the  cause.  But 
in  the  very  act,  in  the  very  moment  of  evil,  the  real 
penalty  descends  irresistibly,  and  in  the  very  amount, 
which  is  deserved.  The  sin  ensures,  because  it  is,  its 
own  punishment.  The  taint  enters  in  it,  and,  along 
with  it,  into  the  spirit.  The  poison  is  shed  the 
instant  the  sting  penetrates.  The  process  of  disease 
and  death  is  begun.  The  smallest  conscious,  volun- 
tary evil  in  the  human  will,  the  smallest  sin  is  in  its 
nature,  death — moral  death.  Without  doubt,  the 
assault  on  soul-life  is  greater  or  less,  in  proportion  to 
the  amount  and  the  kind  of  evil  admitted ;  but  the 
smallest  sin  is  moral  death  begun,  and  moral  perdi- 
tion must  be  the  issue,  unless  the  sin  be  cast  forth. 

Death,  even  in  the  body,  but  much  more  in  the 
soul,  is  a  process,  as  well  as  an  event  consum- 
mated ;  rather,  so  far  as  concerns  the  spirit  of  man, 
it  is  only  a  process,  and  never  an  event  consum- 
mated. We  are  led  astray  by  the  supposed  ana- 
logy between  animal  and  spiritual  death — an  analogy 
clear  and  just  within  certain  limits,  but  thoroughly 
false  if  extended  beyond  them.     The  animal  life  is 


SPIRITUAL   LAWS.  89 

completely  extinguished  by  deatli,  the  animal  sys- 
tem is  completely  dissolved,  the  animal  economy  is 
for  ever  broken  up  and  ended.  That  power  which, 
at  a  precise  moment,  puts  an  end  to  animal  life,  we 
call  death.  The  fact,  single  and  alone,  that  animal 
life  is  quenched,  we  call  death.  And  hence,  not  un- 
naturally, but  quite  untruly,  the  death  of  the  soul 
suggests  a  thing  completed  and  done  with,  even  as 
the  death  of  the  body  is  a  fact  accomplished — a  thing 
of  the  past,  to  which  nothing  remains  except  to  be- 
come matter  of  history.  But  it  is  far  otherwise ;  even 
in  the  case  of  the  animal  life,  though  its  final  extinc- 
tion be  a  fact,  the  fact  of  a  moment,  there  is  first 
of  all,  a  process  leading  to  this  last  result.  Dying 
may  be  a  long  previous  process,  continued  for 
months  or  years.  It  is  even  believed  that  in  the 
first  moment  of  life,  the  seed  of  ultimate  death 
is  planted,  and  that  through  our  whole  animal 
existence,  by  the  side  of  the  process  of  life,  there 
is  an  antagonistic  process  of  death,  which  in  one 
form '  or  another,  and  through  one  aid  or  another, 
at  length  gains  the  mastery,  and  extinguishes 
its  rival.  However  this  be,  death  in  a  human 
spirit,  that  is,  moral  death,  is  unquestionably  a 
process;  and,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  only  a 
process,  and  never,  an  event  consummated — a  pro- 
cess going  forward,  year  after  year  in  this  life, 
which   only   Almighty  mercy  can   terminate.      In 


90  SPIRITUAL   LAWS. 

the  case  of  the  finally  reprobate,  in  whom  the 
direst  form  of  this  penalty  is  realised,  it  is  believed 
that  spiritual  becomes  eternal  death,  that  is,  an 
unending  process  of  dying,  to  which  no  termina- 
tion or  consummation  is  possible. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  when  the  process  of  moral 
death  is  begun  in  the  soul  that  sinneth — and  it 
always  is  inevitably  begun — and  when  that  process 
is  continued — and  it  always  is  inevitably  continued, 
(working  out  also  during  its  continuance,  as  it  does 
and  must,  varied  physical  evil,)  so  long  as  sin 
remains,  and  to  the  extent  in  which  it  remains — 
the  spiritual  laws  of  the  universe  have  their  full 
effect,  their  proper  penalty  is  borne  to  the  letter, 
and  each  claim  which  they  prefer  is  met  and 
honoured  as  it  falls  due.  They  seek  and  need  no 
supplementary  support  from  any  quarter  whatever, 
but  are  perfectly  able  to  sustain  themselves  at 
every  moment.  All  they  demand  is  this,  that 
wherever  and  so  long  as  and  in  the  degree  in 
which  sin  exists,  there  also  shall  be  death,  tnoral 
death,  and  this  is  the  simple,  universal  fact. 

The  favourite  human  expedient  of  commutation 
can  have  no  place  in  the  spiritual  government  of 
the  universe.  Even  on  earth,  and  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  human  laws,  this  is  always,  essentiall}'-, 
an  impei'fection  and  a  dishonour.  The  sentence 
of  death  shall  be  changed  into  banishment  for  life, 


SPIRITUAL   LAWS.  91 

or  the  banishment  shall  be  only  for  a  limited  term, 
or  a  shorter  shall  be  substituted  for  a  longer  period, 
or  banishment  shall  be  changed  into  imprisonment, 
or  this  again  shall  be  commuted  into  a  fine  in 
money.  But  always  the  reason  is  simply  this, 
that  the  sentence  of  the  law  is  judged,  on  one 
ground  or  other,  to  be  too  severe,  and  that  its  faith- 
ful execution  would  amount  to  practical  injustice. 
That  Avhich  is  strictly  legal  is  not  always  perfectly 
equitable.  Alleviating  circumstances  arise  which, 
though  unrecognised  by  the  law,  are  clearly  vaHd 
to  a  certain  extent.  A  discretionary  power,  there- 
fore, within  certain  limits  is  wisely  allowed.  The 
undue  rigour  of  human  laws  is  tempered,  special 
cases  are  met,  and  unforeseen  circumstances  of  great 
weight  are  duly  recognised.  Among  men,  and 
considering  what  human  things  are,  the  expedient 
of  commutation  is,  on  many  accounts,  very  desir- 
able, and  even  necessary.  But  the  very  grounds 
which  make  it  becoming  in  human  administration, 
render  it  impossible  to  the  course  of  spiritual  law. 
God  cannot  change  His  mind,  as  man  does  and 
ought.  God  cannot,  like  man,  be  now  disposed 
to  severity,  and  again  relent  to  a  more  patient 
and  tender  mood.  God  cannot  mistake  in  the  first 
instance,  as  man  does ;  and  cannot,  like  man,  need 
to  review  and  correct  His  sentence.  No  unforeseen 
circumstance  can  ever  arise  to  justify  or  require  a 


92  SPIRITUAL   LAWS. 


modification  of  spiritual  law;  it  is  based  on  infin- 
ite prevision,  and  on  eternal  rectitude  and  truth; 
it  contemplates  all  possible  cases,  and  cannot,  with- 
out dishonour,  admit  of  the  smallest  exception. 

Among  the  distinctive  imperfections  of  human 
administration,  there  is  another,  which,  by  contrast, 
illuminates  the  righteous  government  of  God.  Codes 
of  law  of  necessity  specify  particular  offences,  and 
profess  to  give  an  exhaustive  enumeration  of  the  cri- 
minal acts  to  which  they  refer,  to  ordain  the  respective 
punishments  with  which  these  acts  shall  be  visited, 
and  to  determine  the  duration  of  such  punishments. 
When,  in  any  instance,  the  decreed  punishment  has 
been  borne,  and  when  the  decreed  time  has  expired, 
the  ofiender  is  perfectly  free  in  the  eye  of  the  law. 
But,  in  this  respect,  between  divine  and  human  ad- 
ministration, there  is,  instead  of  analogy,  the  widest 
distinction.  No  catalogue  of  ofi'ences  is  given  here, 
and  no  specific  penalties  for  difi'erent  kinds  of  crime 
are  decreed.  The  law  of  God  deals  not  with  sins  so 
much  as  with  sin,  not  even  with  acts,  so  much  as  with 
the  one  inner  spring  of  action,  the  one  root  of  all  sin 
— the  evil  will,  the  corrupt,  false  bias  of  the  nature. 
Instead  of  multiplied  and  various  punishments  for 
different  crimes — arbitrary  punishments,  inasmuch  as 
they  are  fixed  by  the  judgment  and  the  will  of  human 
lawgivers  —  in  the  divine  law,  one  unchangeable, 
universal  penalty,  equally  applicable  to  all  possible 


SPIRITUAL   LAWS.  93 

crimes,  is  decreed.  Sin  is  death !  No  matter  wlio 
the  culprit  be,  or  what  the  kind  of  crime  or  where 
committed,  or  what  the  circumstances,  if  it  be  sin, 
and  so  far  as  it  is  sin,  it  is  death.  Any  sin,  all  sin, 
according  to  its  degree,  and  so  long  as  it  continues,  is 
death,  moral  death — but  not  unattended  with  varied 
physical  penalties  in  this  life.  "No  term  of  punish- 
ment is  fixed,  none  can  be  fixed.  One  thing,  and  one 
thing  only,  determines  the  duration  of  the  punish- 
ment, and  that  is  the  continuance  of  evil  in  the  soul. 
The  evil  continuing  its  attendant  penalty  is  a  neces- 
sity, which  even  God  could  not  conquer.  Sin  is 
punishment,  and  punishment  lies  in  the  nature  of  sin. 
Led  astray  by  the  analogies  of  human  administration, 
we  imagine  that  a  long  and  dark  array  of  conscious 
or  forgotten  sins,  as  yet  unpunished,  is  loudly  wit- 
nessing against  us,  and  calling  for  righteous  retribu- 
tion. And  it  is  true,  strictly  true,  that  so  long  as  sin 
is  within  us,  it  must  continue  not  only  to  call  for 
retribution,  but  to  bring  down  its  penalty,  as  at  the 
first.  But  it  is  equally  true,  that  no  sin  is,  or  ever 
can  be,  unpunished  a  moment,  because  it  ever  and 
instantly  punishes  itself.  Human  law  fails  to  disco- 
ver the  evil-doer,  and  wearied  with  vain  searching,  it 
goes  to  sleep,  and  is  robbed  of  its  due  for  years,  or  for 
ever.  But  spiritual  law  never  slumbers,  and  is  never 
defrauded  for  a  moment.  That  which  God  calls  sin 
is  never  undiscovered,  and  never  for  an  instant  fails  to 


94  SPIRITUAL    LAWS. 

meet  its  desert.  The  moment  of  sin  is  the  moment 
of  death  in  the  soul.  God  has  no  unsettled  accounts, 
no  outstanding  claims.  The  process  of  perdition  begins 
without  fail,  and  deepens  with  the  duration  and  the 
amount  of  sin.  A  terrific  future  is  in  reserve,  because 
now  we  see  only  the  germ ;  hereafter  the  'last  dread 
perfection  of  development.  But  the  present  exacts 
all  its  rights.  Spiritual  law  carries  out  its  sentence 
at  once  and  to  the  letter,  and  allows  no  claim  for  an 
instant  to  be  dishonoured. 

We  are  entitled  to  come  to  this  distinct  conclusion, 
that  the  great  governing  principles  of  the  divine  ad- 
ministration need  no  support  beyond  themselves,  and 
no  vindication.  They  are  for  ever  equal  to  their  own 
maintenance.  The  idea  of  exculpating  or  justifying 
the  laws  of  the  spiritual  universe— above  all,  of  up- 
holding their  inviolable  authority — would  be  to  add 
insult  to  injury,  as  if  they  were  incapable  of  defend- 
ing and  avenging  themselves.  They  do  not  need 
help,  they  do  not  admit  of  it ;  the  thing  is  an  impos- 
sibility. So  thoroughly  do  they  insure  the  infliction 
of  merited  punishment,  that  any  attempt  of  that  na- 
ture would  be  as  useless  as  it  would  be  presumptuous. 
It  would  impute  weakness  to  that  which  is  divinely 
strong,  and  it  would  suppose  and  create  the  suspicion 
of  a  need  of  help  which  did  not  exist.  It  would  im- 
peach God  himself.  All  divine  laws,  material  and 
spiritual  alike,  are  sufficient  for  themselves.     Only 


SPIRITUAL   LAWS.  95 

human  laws  need  vindication  and  support.  Among 
men,  where  the  administration  of  justice  is  ever  im- 
perfect, and  where  criminals,  by  one  means  or  other, 
contrive  to  evade  and  escape  from  justice,  there  is  the 
most  urgent  necessity  for  upholding  the  majesty  of 
the  law,  and  for  vindicating  it  by  impressive  exam- 
ples, perhaps  even  by  extraordinary  expedients.  But 
there  is  no  evading  the  dire  sanction  of  spiritual  laws, 
no  possible  escape  from  their  retributive  awards,  and 
therefore  there  is  no  need  in  their  case  of  vindication 
or  defence.  Even  the  laws  of  the  material  universe 
know  nothing  of  the  remotest  possibility  of  resistance 
or  evasion  or  escape  within  their  several  range.  We 
are  said  to  resist  them,  but  it  is  by  implicitly  yielding 
to  them.  We  are  said  to  force  them  to  our  will,  to 
convert  them  to  our  purposes,  and  to  render  them  ser- 
viceable to  our  interests  and  our  aims,  instead  of  being, 
as  they  otherwise  would  be,  hostile  and  destructive. 
But  the  simple  fact  is,  that  all  the  while  a  more  ex- 
tensive familiarity  with  them  only  strengthens  the 
conviction  that  they  must  be  obeyed  to  the  letter.  To 
resist  them  really  is  impossible,  without  paying  the 
full  penalty  of  infraction.  Without  fail  they  avenge 
themselves,  and  need  no  help  from  us  or  from  any 
quarter  whatever.  What  a  burlesque  it  would  be, 
what  insanity  to  profess  to  vindicate  and  uphold  the 
laws  of  nature  !  And  can  it  be  less  than  an  insult  to 
the  great  Being  to  imagine,  that  what  would  be  folly 


96  SPIKITUAL   LAWS. 

in  regard  to  them  is  a  matter  of  fact  in  regard  to  the 
higher  laws  of  spirit,  as  if  they  somehow  were  in 
danger,  and  needed  to  be  vindicated,  sustained,  and 
defended  ?  Can  it  be  less  than  an  insult  to  the  Great 
Being  to  imagine,  that  a  dishonour  and  a  weakness 
which  inhere  nowhere,  except  in  the  imperfect  con- 
stitutions of  human  society,  must  attach  to  the  eter- 
nal principles  of  His  universe. 

There  is  ground  for  very  reverent  caution,  lest  in 
thinking  to  honour  God  we  should  do  Him  deep  dis- 
honour and  injustice, — lest  in  the  idea  that  His  laws 
are  insufficient  for  themselves,  and  therefore  need 
extraneous  support  and  defence,  we  should  strike  a 
damaging  blow  at  their  authority,  and  undermine 
the  sacred  foundation  on  which  they  rest.  The  ver- 
dict of  Heaven  is  this,  as  unambiguous  and  deter- 
minate as  words  can  express  it,  "  The  soul  that  sin- 
neth  shall  die."  It  is  true ;  it  must  be  true.  God 
cannot  speak  with  a  double  meaning.  What  He 
declares  He  must  intend, — simply  intend,  and  in  the 
sense  which  the  words  plainly  convey.  His  verdict 
against  sin,  the  penalty  which  He  announces  it  shall 
incur,  is  and  must  be  a  literal  truth.  "  The  soul 
that  sinneth  shall  die,"  He  has  declared,  and  as  a 
simple  matter  of  fact,  the  soul  that  sinneth  does  die. 
To  the  extent  and  in  the  degree  in  which  it  sins,  it 
does  die ;  to  this  extent  and  degree  the  seat  of  inner 
life  is  assailed.     In  sinning,  and  by  sinning,  it  dies 


SPIKITUAL   LAWS.  97 

inevitably.  With  sin  the  seed  of  death  is  planted ; 
and  from  that  moment,  in  its  noblest  part,  it  is  no 
more  a  living,  but  a  dying,  soul,  unless  and  until  an 
antagonist  process  of  recovery  be  commenced  within 
it.  The  veracity  of  God  is  unimpeachable,  and  the 
law  of  the  spiritual  universe  is  vindicated,  verified, 
honoured,  to  the  fullest  possible  extent,  by  itself.  It 
is  sufficient  for  itself,  needs  no  avenger,  and  stands 
erect  in  its  own  inviolable  majesty.  God  himself 
could  not  annul  the  sequence,  sin  and  death ;  could 
not  dissolve  this  dire  connexion,  could  not  shield 
from  the  penalty,  except  by  removing  its  cause. 

There  is  one,  but  there  is  only  one,  way  in  which 
the  tremendous  doom  of  the  sinful  soul  can  be 
escaped,  in  consistency  with  the  great  laws  of  the 
spiritual  universe.  If  sin  were  cast  out,  the  death 
which  issues  solely  from  sin  would  be  effectually  pre- 
vented. If  the  internal  seat  and  seed  of  evil  were 
crushed  and  killed,  the  outgrowth  from  it  would 
certainly  perish.  If  the  fatal  disease  itself  were 
checked  and  cured,  then,  but  only  then,  a  restorative, 
healing  process  might  take  the  place  of  an  ever- 
deepening  perdition,  for  the  same  law  which  an- 
nounces that  sin  is  death,  proclaims  also  that  holi- 
ness is  life.  If  sin  w^ere  extirpated  and  expelled, 
and  if  love  of  God  and  of  good  were  planted  in  its 
stead,  then  the  true  redemption  of  the  human  spirit 
would  be  secure.     There  is  one  salvation  for  man, 

G 


98  SPIRITUAL    LAWS. 

only  one ;  a  salvation  not  from  hell,  but  from  sin ; 
not  from  consequences  here  or  hereafter,  but  from 
the  deep  cause  itself  which  is  secreted  within  the 
nature.  The  work  of  God  is  not  so  much  to  pardon 
the  past  as  to  kill  outright  an  evil  which  is  pre- 
sent. The  divinest  work  of  God  on  this  earth  is 
the  destroying  of  evil.  By  the  one  true  sacrifice  of 
Christ,  an  act  of  divine  self-sacrifice,  by  incarnate, 
crucified  love,  He  aims  a  blow  at  the  root  of  evil 
within  man's  heart.  The  subsequent  process  is  end- 
lessly diverse,  and  is  tedious  and  slow,  but  the  issue 
is  certain, — the  death  of  sin.  God  touches  the  deadly 
disease  at  its  foul  source  and  heals  it.  He  breaks 
the  hard  heart  by  the  overwhelming  pressure  of 
pure,  almighty  mercy  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  He 
kindles  a  new  divine  life,  which  is  holiness ;  the  reso- 
lute, free,  glad  choice  of  truth  and  of  good.  Spiritual 
law  triumphs  in  the  new  life,  as  in  the  previous 
death.  God  slays  the  sin,  and  thus  saves  the  soul. 
He  destroys  death  by  implanting  life. 


CHAPTER  lY. 


ETERNAL    JUSTICE. 

Opposite  Conceptions  of  Justice — Providence — Inequalities,  Real 
Equality — Mere  Justice — Not  in  God — A  Human  Notion — 
God  always  More  and  Better  than  Merely  Just— Justice  and 
Mercy — Evil,  Not  of  God — Moral,  Physical  Evil — Ethical 
Nature  of  God  and  Man — Mercy  Loftier,  Holier  than  Justice 
— Inevitable  Doom  of  Sin — Triumph  of  Mercy. 


]]1E0M  law  to  justice,  from  spiritual  laws  to 
justice  in  God,  the  transition  is  direct  and 
short.  Spiritual  laws  are  grounded  in  the  eternal 
rectitude  and  wisdom,  and  the  ejffect  of  their  opera- 
tion is  the  necessary  reign  of  perfect  equity  in  the 
universe.  Amidst  all  the  evils  that  spring  out 
of  human  sin,  God's  ways  are  ever  equal,  only 
man's  ways  are  unequal.  But  the  most  opposite 
impressions  are  awakened  in  different  minds  by 
the  notion  of  such  an  attribute  as  justice  in  God, 
on  the  one  side  only  repulsive,  and  on  the  other 
as  strongly  attractive.  The  difference  is  so  great 
that  it  has  been  pronounced  original  and  organic. 
Altogether,  in  the  sphere  of  theology,  the  confident 
position  is  laid  down,  that  men  do  not  of  them- 
selves become,  but  are  really  born  either  Calvinists 
or  Pelagians — using  these  names  loosely  and  sim- 
ply to  mark  two  quite  opposite  poles  of  thought. 

In  a  wider  yet  kindred  sense,  it  is  maintained, 
that  men  are  born  either  Aristotelians  or  Platonists. 
Not  of  choice,  but  in  consequence  of  a  real  neces- 
sity, occasioned  by  their  individual  structure,  they 


102  ETERNAL   JUSTICE. 

are  materialistic  or  spiritualistic,  logical  or  philo- 
sophical, argumentative  or  intuitional ;  the  one  and 
the  other  alike  being  the  simple  effect  of  original, 
mental  conformation.  The  distinction,  diver o:in2: 
more  or  less  from  its  source,  can  readily  be  drawn 
out,  to  almost  any  extent  of  minuteness.  Men 
are  calculating  and  sceptical,  or  they  are  sympa- 
thetic and  receptive ;  rigid  and  narrow,  or  com- 
prehensive, catholic,  and  free ;  they  are  found  to 
admire  the  harder,  sterner  virtues,  or  they  are  won 
by  the  nobler,  gentler,  finer  qualities  of  the  soul ; 
they  limit  themselves  to  the  senses  and  to  the 
range  of  the  understanding,  and  to  what  can  be 
submitted  to  its  processes  and  decisions,  or  they 
love  to  ascend  to  the  region  of  the  supersensual, 
and  covet  intensely  the  higher  revelations  of  a  dis- 
ciplined faith.  The  two  orders  are  ever  ranged  on 
opposite  sides,  in  theology,  in  philosophy,  and  in 
real  life.  Kespecting  the  origin  of  the  universe, 
the  question  of  a  First  Cause,  the  Being  and  charac- 
ter of  God,  the  introduction  of  evil  into  the  uni- 
verse, the  nature  of  volition,  the  final  destiny  of 
man,  as  either  the  outcome  of  an  unconditional 
decree,  or  simply  a  result  of  the  use  or  abuse  of 
moral  liberty,  they  are  always  essentially  divided, 
and  in  all,  are  rightly  distinguished  as  positivists 
or  spiritualists.  Explain  it  how  we  may,  the 
distinction  is  undoubted,  and  in  few  directions  is 


ETERNAL   JUSTICE.  103 

it  more  striking  than  in  the  opposite  manner  in 
which  divine  justice  is  regarded,  and  in  the  opposite 
sentiments  it  awakens  in  different  minds. 

The  etymology  and  relations  of  the  word  "justice," 
entitle  us  to  say  that  a  straight  line,  an  even  balance, 
may  be  taken  as  the  exact  material  symbol  of  this 
spiritual  attribute.  The  slightest  deflection  from 
perfect  straightness  destroys  the  line.  Justice  is  per- 
fectly rectilineal,  and  means  the  rendering  to  every 
one  his  full  desert  without  stint,  but  also  without 
excess,  not  an  iota  more  or  less  than  his  desert. 
It  must  be  admitted  on  all  hands  that  were  even 
this,  however  poor  and  low,  as  a  highest  ideal, 
realised  over  the  wide  earth,  were  mere  exact  justice 
established  as  the  universal  rule  of  this  world, 
the  result  would  be  a  veritable  millennium,  com- 
pared with  the  existing  condition  of  things.  The 
deeds  of  atrocious  injustice  which  are  perpetrated 
everywhere,  in  Christian  as  well  as  in  other  lands ; 
the  horrible  wrongs  done  by  men,  to  the  feelings, 
the  character,  the  reputation,  the  property,  the 
liberty,  the  persons,  the  lives,  the  bodies,  and  the 
souls  of  their  fellow-men,  defy  computation.  But 
these  and  untold  enormous  evils  besides  would  be 
swept  clean  away,  if  only  mere  justice,  no  more, 
rectilineal  justice,  were  to  reign  supreme.  There 
would  be  an  eternal  end  to  war,  from  which  gigantic 
injustice  on  one  side  or  other,  or  both,  is  inseparable. 


104  ETERNAL   JUSTICE. 

an  eternal  end  to  slavery,  to  rapine,  to  murder,  to 
tlieft,  and  to  all  the  darker  crimes  which  now 
desolate  and  afflict  mankind.  Justice,  mere  justice, 
is  entitled  to  stand  high  among  the  virtues,  in  the. 
convictions  of  men,  though  it  be  dishonoured  and 
prostrate  in  fact,  as  the  w^orld  goes. 

So  far  as  the  Great  God  is  concerned,  justice  is 
administered  even  now  on  earth, — at  the  least,  jus- 
tice, never  less  than  justice,  though,  often,  usually, 
much  more.  Ketribution,  in  the  sense  of  evil,  but 
far  more,  in  the  sense  of  good,  is  not  wholly  reserved 
for  a  future  state  of  being.  The  present,  it  seems 
to  be  thought,  is  the  scene  only  of  preliminary  pro- 
bation, during  which,  as  a  matter  of  necessity, 
endless  inequalities  and  injustices  are  permitted. 
The  future,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  state  of  compen- 
sation, in  which  all  that  has  been  incomplete  and 
defective  here  shall  be  filled  up,  and  all  that  has 
seemed  irregular  or  even  wrong,  shall  be  remedied 
and  rectified,  and  in  which  the  condition  of  every 
being  shall  righteously  answer  to  his  individual 
character  and  desert.  But  admitting  a  wide  difi'er- 
ence  between  the  present  and  the  future,  it  must  not 
be  imagined  that  there  is  not  even  now  a  God  who 
judgeth  in  the  earth.  To  punish  notorious  offenders, 
to  put  down  evil,  to  confound  oppression  and  craft 
and  to  shield,  and  save,  and  honour  the  good,  the 
Most  High  comes  forth,  not  seldom,  out  of  His  place 


ETEKNAL   JUSTICE.  105 

and  makes  bare  His  holy  arm.  There  is  ground  to 
believe,  that  in  a  wider  sense  still,  and  on  ordinary 
occasions,  and  in  the  general,  common  movements  of 
earthly  providence,  there  is  a  very  real,  though  not 
palpable  adjustment  of  condition  to  desert,  of  actual 
life-experience  to  individual  character. 

It  is  not  here  meant,  with  manifold,  plain  facts 
before  us,  the  idea  is  inadmissible  that  visible,  out- 
ward, exact  retribution  is  measured  out  to  every 
individual,  in  this  life.  But  it  is  meant,  that  with 
many  seeming  exceptions,  it  is  yet  marvellously  true 
that  men,  even  here  on  earth,  get  what  they  work  for 
and  aim  at,  what  they  really  deserve,  both  in  the 
way  of  punishment  and  in  the  way  of  reward.  One 
of  the  memorable  sentences  of  holy  Scripture  runs 
thus,  "Be  sure,  your  sin  will  find  you  out;''  and 
your  virtue  also,  we  may  add,  whatsoever  in  you  has 
been  genuinely  good,  will  not  lose  its  reward.  Few 
intelligent  and  observant  persons  can  have  failed  to 
mark  with  wonder,  to  what  an  extent  in  later  life, 
both  the  good  and  the  evil  of  other  days  have  re- 
turned upon  them,  most  manifestly.  The  special 
early  facts  had  been  long  past  and  forgotten,  but 
they  came  to  life  again  in  an  undeniable  resurrection, 
the  book  of  fate  was  opened,  the  long  outstanding 
account  was  at  last  made  up,  and  a  mystic  finger 
pointed  to  the  past  date,  the  page,  the  very  line. 
Justice  does  reign  in  the  movements  of  providence 


106  ETERNAL    JUSTICE. 

here  below — at  all  events  never  less  than  justice,  but 
also,  as  we  shall  have  to  show,  never  mere  rec- 
tilineal justice,  neither  less  nor  more. 

In  the  eyes  of  some  good  men  this  virtue  in  its 
exact,  even  rigorous  form,  is  a  noble  and  right  royal 
attribute.  Nothing  so  befits  and  dignifies  a  gover- 
nor, a  judge,  a  king.  It  is  the  quality,  which  of  all 
others,  imparts  consistency  and  firmness  to  character, 
and  renders  it  reliable.  There  is  no  danger  of  con- 
tempt or  insult  to  a  ruler  thus  endowed ;  he  is  sure 
to  be  respected  and  trusted,  and  his  administration 
will  be  a  terror  to  evil-doers  and  a  praise  to  the  good. 
There  are  persons  who,  with  such  sentiments,  deliber- 
ately elect  to  govern  their  lives  mainly  by  considera- 
tions of  exact  justice.  They  admire  it  in  others,  and 
sedulously  cultivate  it  in  themselves.  Generosity, 
properly  so  called,  anything  strictly  spontaneous  and 
impulsive,  they  rather  discourage  than  cherish.  Not 
strangers  to  generous  sentiments,  and  not  incapable, 
besides,  of  deeds  of  daring,  of  patient  endurance  and 
even  of  true  self-sacrifice,  what  they  appreciate  far 
more  highly  in  themselves  and  in  others,  is  the  reign 
of  law,  exact  obedience,  stern  justice,  neither  less  nor 
more.  On  a  far  lower  platform,  and  in  ordinary  life, 
multitudes  without  the  lofty  sentiments  of  the  others, 
are  strenuous  for  the  letter  of  the  law,  acting,  per- 
haps, up  to  what  is  outwardly  required,  but  certainly 
,  not  ambitious  of  a  virtue,  exceeding  the  limits  of  the 


ETEKNAL   JUSTICE,  107 

precept.  They  are  clamorous,  in  all  cases,  for  law 
having  its  course,  and  loud  in  their  praise  of  justice, 
inflexible  justice,  with  an  evident  delight  in  the  idea 
of  inflexibility,  as  if  to  them  there  were  a  tone  of 
majesty  and  grandeur  in  the  very  word.  They  are 
fond  of  asseverating,  that  if  laws  are  to  be  reverenced 
and  obeyed,  they  must  be  inflexibly  executed.  There 
must  be  no  swerving,  no  flinching  from  the  strict, 
stern  rule  of  right,  no  unrighteous  leniency,  no 
wicked  pity,  which  sets  aside  the  holy  claims  of  law, 
and  in  miserable  regard  for  one,  or  for  a  few,  cruelly 
places  before  thousands  a  powerful  temptation  to 
crime.  In  relation  to  their  very  standing  before 
their  Maker,  these  persons  would  admit  nothing — 
they  could  not  even  respect  God  himself,  were  they 
called  upon  to  admit  anything,  which  did  not  har- 
monise with  stern,  inflexible  justice.  In  the  matter 
of  their  own  future  well-being,  they  must  first  see 
that  the  Almighty  has,  according  to  their  ideas, 
sufficiently  guarded  the  authority  and  the  honour  of 
His  law,  and  has  sufficiently  met  all  the  demands  of 
His  justice,  before  they  can  feel  entitled  to  trust 
themselves  to  divine,  redeeming  love. 

There  must  be  a  profound  and  very  serious  mis- 
apprehension here.  Directly,  in  the  face  of  this 
state  of  mind,  it  can  readily  be  shown  that  recti- 
lineal justice,  in  the  sense  of  apportioning  exact 
desert,  neither  less  nor  more,  is  not  an  attribute 


108  ETEKNAL   JUSTICE. 

of  God  at  all,  and  cannot  be.  So  far  as  the  present 
world  is  concerned,  there  is  not  a  single  being  who, 
at  any  moment,  receives  from  God  his  exact  desert, 
neither  less  nor  more.  The  Great  God  is  never  un- 
just— that  is  impossible.  He  is  never  less  than 
just ;  but  He  is.  He  always  is,  more  than  just. 
The  Almighty  never  treats  even  the  wickedest  of 
His  creatures  on  earth  according  to  exact  desert. 
Injustice,  in  the  least  imaginable  taint,  under  any 
pretext,  is  infinitely  far  removed  from  Him;  but 
mere  justice,  which  limits  itself  to  exact  desert,  is 
not  only  no  attribute  of  the  Most  High,  but  it  is 
wholly  a  human  notion, — it  belongs  to  men  solely, 
— and  it  belongs  to  them  solely  because  of  their 
imperfection  and  their  actual  wickedness.  A  human 
judge  must  be  influenced  neither  by  clemency  nor 
by  revenge,  and  must  act,  in  his  judicial  capacity, 
as  if  he  were  devoid  of  human  impulses  and  senti- 
ments, devoid  even  of  volitions.  He  must  be  guided 
by  no  will  of  his  own,  and  by  no  leaning  to  one  side 
or  another.  The  ideal  is,  that  he  is  the  mere  pas- 
sive executor  of  a  law  which  he  did  not  make, 
but  must  absolutely  enforce.  It  is  essential  to  the 
stability  and  the  order  of  society,  that  the  law  be 
carried  out  without  favour  or  fear.  On  the  one 
hand,  such  are  the  mass  of  mankind,  so  ready  to 
take  advantage  of  vacillation  or  of  sympathy ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  so  weak  and  evil  are  even  the 


ETERNAL   JUSTICE.  109 

best  of  men,  so  constantly  in  danger  of  erring  on 
the  side  of  mercy,  and  no  less  so  on  the  side  of 
unjust  anger  and  vindictive  severity,  that  they  must 
not  be  trusted.  The  public  safety  demands  tliat 
they  be  either  the  compulsory  victims,  or  the  pas- 
sive administrators  of  inflexible  law. 

The  Great  God  is  under  none  of  these,  nor  any 
other  necessities  whatsoever.  He  has  no  cause  to 
fear,  or  to  guard  against  either  the  wickedness  or  the 
weakness  of  His  creatures.  He  has  no  misgivings 
as  to  the  immovable  authority  and  the  perfect  vin- 
dication of  His  law,  or  as  to  the  absolute  stability 
of  His  government.  He  does  not  need  to  be,  and 
He  is  not,  just,  in  the  human,  rectilineal  sense  at 
all.  He  deals  neither  with  the  good  nor  with  the 
bad,  exactly  according  to  their  deserving.  "  The 
Lord  is  good  unto  all," — be  their  character  what  it 
may, — to  the  vilest  wretch,  who  pollutes  the  earth 
with  his  tread,  and  to  the  holiest  saint,  whose  daily 
life  is  like  a  breath  from  heaven.  "  The  Lord  is" 
— not  just,  not  merely  and  strictly  just,  but — "  good 
unto  all;  and  His  tender  mercies  are  over  all  His 
works."  "He  maketh  His  sun  to  rise" — not  on 
the  good  only,  but — "  on  the  evil  and  upon  the 
good,  and  sendeth  rain  upon  the  just  and  upon  the 

unjust."     "  Bless  the  Lord,  0  my  soul who 

satisfieth  thy  mouth  with  good  things,  so  that  thy 
youth  is  renewed  like  the  eagle's.     The  Lord  exe- 


110  ETERNAL   JUSTICE. 

cuteth  righteousness  and  judgment  for  all  that  are 
oppressed."  "The  Lord  is"  —  not  simply  and 
merely  just,  but  far  more  and  better  than  just,  He 
is — "  merciful  and  gracious,  slow  to  anger,  and 
plenteous  in  mercy."  "  He  visitcth  the  earth  "— 
though  it  be  laden  with  sin,  and  ever  meriting 
chastisement  and  rebuke — "  and  water eth  it.  He 
greatly  enricheth  it  with  the  river  of  God,  which 
is  full  of  water — He  prepareth  them  corn,  when 
He  hath  so  provided  for  it — He  watereth  the  ridges 
thereof  aljundantly — He  settleth  the  furrows  thereof 
— He  maketh  it  soft  with  showers — He  blesseth  the 
springing  thereof — He  crowneth  the  year  with  His 
goodness,  and  His  paths  drop  fatness.  They  drop 
upon  the  pastures  of  the  wilderness,  and  the  little 
hills  rejoice  on  every  side.  The  pastures  are  clothed 
with  flocks ;  the  valleys  are  covered  over  with  corn : 
they  shout  for  joy — they  also  sing."  Is  this  descrip- 
tive of  One,  who  is  merely  just,  who  carefully  acts 
up  to  what  law  and  justice  demand,  and  exactly 
measures  out  to  His  creatures  their  desert,  but  no 
more  ?  It  certainly  is  not.  "  Love  ye  your  ene- 
mies," said  our  blessed  Lord,  "  and  your  reward 
shall  be  great,  and  ye  shall  be  the  children  of  the 
Highest,  for  He  is"— not  simply  just,  but — "  kind," 
and  to  whom  ?  "  unto  the  unthankful  and  the  evil." 
"Be  ye,  therefore" — not  simply  just,  but — "merci- 
ful, as  your  Father  also  is  merciful."     Justice,  in 


ETERNAL   JUSTICE.  Ill 

the  human,  rectilineal  sense,  is  no  attribute  of  the 
God  of  the  Bible.  He  is  always  merciful ;  and 
because  He  is  merciful,  He  cannot  be,  and  never  is, 
simply,  merely  just.  Always  He  is  more  and  better 
than  merely  just,  and  acts  on  the  ground  of  pure 
mercy.  The  whole  course  of  the  world,  from  the 
creation  till  now,  and  the  manifest  system  of  divine 
providence  towards  the  good  and  towards  the  bad, 
are  right  in  the  face  of  the  idea  of  rectilineal  justice. 
There  is  no  such  attribute  in  God. 

But  the  inevitable  punishment  of  moral  evil, 
always  and  everywhere,  is  certain  nevertheless. 
The  justice  of  the  universe,  in  this  sense,  is  a  tre- 
mendous fact,  an  eternal  and  necessary  fact,  which 
even  God  could  not  set  aside.  There  is  an  irre- 
sistible, a  real  force,  springing  out  of  the  essential 
constitution  of  things,  whereby  sin  punishes  itself. 
This  is  the  fixed  law  of  the  moral  universe,  a  law 
in  perfect  harmony  with  the  eternal  will,  and  which 
never  is,  and  never  can  be  broken.  God's  mercy 
in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  does  not  in  the  slightest 
degree  set  aside  this  justice  ;  what  it  does  is,  to 
remove  and  -render  non-existent  the  only  ground 
on  which  the  claim  of  justice  stands.  Instead  of 
arbitrarily  withdrawing  the  criminal  from  punish- 
ment, it  destroys  in  his  soul  that  evil,  which  is 
the  only  cause  and  reason  of  punishment,  and 
which  being  removed,  punishment  ceases  of  itself. 


112  ETERNAL   JUSTICE. 

The  redeemed  whom  we  picture  in  a  future  state, 
are  they,  not  who  have  baffled  and  defeated  and 
evaded  justice,  or  who  by  some  indirect,  side 
method  have  succeeded  in  quieting  its  demands, 
but  they  in  whom  that  sin,  which  justice  does 
and  must  punish,  has  been  pierced  through  and 
ultimately  destroyed,  and  cast  forth  by  incarnate 
love ;  they,  in  whom  the  moral  disease  which  was 
preying  upon  their  life  has  been  stayed,  and  in 
whom  a  restorative  healing  process  was  begun  and 
has  been  consummated. 

As  for  the  darker  side  of  future  being,  it  be- 
comes us  to  speak  with  most  reverent  reserve.  If 
the  unredeemed  shall  be,  as  they  shall  and  must  be, 
separated  from  the  redeemed,  it  can  only  be  in 
consequence  of  an  evil  which  no  spiritual  influences 
could  conquer.  1  Even  the  Great  God  cannot  avert 
the  penalty,  except  by  destroying  the  sin.  While 
sin  continues  to  be  the  choice  of  the  created  will, 
punishment  is  inevitable.  Divine  mercy,  having 
done  its  uttermost,   to  reconcile  and   subdue  and 


^  With  great  deference,  I  would  suggest  to  the  wise  and  good 
men  who  recoil  from  the  thought  that  sin  is  to  some  extent  (to 
what  extent  we  know  not)  irremediable  even  by  God,  that  there  is 
an  earHer  and  darker  mystery  still,  namely,  that  the  entrance  of 
sin  was  inpreventible.  I  for  one  could  never  believe  that  the  holy 
God  might  have  prevented  its  entrance,  but  did  not.  But  if  it  was 
inpreventible,  it  is  not  hard  to  conclude  that  in  some  of  its  forms 
it  may  also  be  irremediable  even  by  infinite  love. 


ETEKNAL   JUSTICE.  113 

save,  is  thenceforth  powerless.  The  doom  of  the 
lost,  be  it  whatever  it  may,  is  simply  and  wholly 
their  own  work.  God  has  had  and  has  no  part  in 
it  whatever.  It  is  all  from  first  to  last  not  only 
their  doing,  but  their  doing  in  despite  of  God. 
No  deprivation  and  no  evil  which  they  suffer  can 
be  traced  to  Him.  All  is  the  simple  effect,  which 
no  power  in  the  universe  could  prevent,  of  that  sin 
which  they  have  determinedly  made  their  own. 
They  might  have  had  life.  God  mercifully  and 
long  strove  with  them,  in  order  that  they  might 
be  constrained  to  choose  life,  and  all  the  influences 
of  His  providence  .and  of  His  Spirit  were  directed 
to  this  end.  "  But  they  would  not."  That  is  the 
sole  and  the  full  interpretation  of  their  doom. 

There  is  an  eternal  justice  in  harmony  with  the 
highest  will,  though  not  dependent  upon  it.  The 
law  of  the  universe  is  truly  God's  law,  but,  like  Him- 
self, the  law  is  eternal  and  immutable.  Wherever 
sin  is,  and  so  long  as  it  continues,  punishment  is 
inevitable.  Nothing  can  hinder  it.  When  divine 
mercy  triumphs,  as  in  myriads  of  instances  it  has 
done  and  shall  do,  it  is  never  by  trenching  on  jus- 
tice, but  only  and  always  by  destroying  sin.  With 
profound  reverence  let  it  be  uttered,  that  even  God 
exercises  no  power  of  punishing  or  not,  according 
to  His  pleasure,  and  in  what  degree  it  seems  good 
to  Him.     Save  with  a  limitation,  presently  to  be 


114  ETERNAL    JUSTICE. 

stated,  the  God  of  purity  and  love  has  no  part  in 
the  punishment  of  sin — no  part  in  moral,  or  even  in 
physical,  evil.  Both  are  simply  His  foes  and  the 
foes  of  creation.  To  moral  evil,i  in  its  origin,  its 
nature,  its  course,  and  all  its  aspects.  His  sole  rela- 
tion is  that  of  irreconcilable  resistance  and  hatred. 
Even  physical  evil  can  be  only  abhorrent  to  His 
nature.  Essentially  considered  and  in  one  form  or 
other,  physical  evil  is  the  inevitable  effect  of  moral 
evil.  God  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  production 
of  this  effect,  but  He  reigns  supremely,  and  has 
chosen  to  reign,  over  all  its  distributions,  its  times, 
and  its  modes.  Mercifully  He .  reigns  over  these, 
and  directs  and  shapes  that  suffering,  which,  inde- 
pendently of  Him,  was  in  one  form  or  other 
inevitable,  so  as  to  act  powerfully  on  the  moral 
nature  of  men,  and  to  retrieve,  as  far  as  that  is 
possible,  the  deeper  curse  in  which  all  physical 
evil  originates.  But  eternal  justice,  meaning  the 
inevitable  punishment  of  sin,  takes  its  course  re- 
sistlessly.  God,  for  merciful  and  holy  ends,  deter- 
mines the  special  physical  mode  in  wliich  the  penalty 
shall  come  forth  here  on  earth.  But  its  real,  inner, 
necessary  infliction  is  inpreventible.  It  must  come 
down.  It  lies  in  the  essential  nature  of  things  that 
it  must  come  down.     Ever  and  ever,  justice  inflicts 

1  See  "  Evil  and  God,"  &c.,  pp.  180-230. 


ETEENAL   JUSTICE.  115 

an  inevitable  penalty,  and  exacts  the    completest 
satisfaction. 

But  without  seeking  to  qualify  these  statements 
in  the  least  degree,  it  must  not  be  overlooked  for  a 
moment  that  justice,  in  the  awful  sense  explained, 
is  not  the  only  fact  in  the  universe,  and  not  the 
divinest,  by  any  means.  There  may  be  nothing 
more  indispensable  in  its  place  than  justice,  but 
there  are  very  many  things  which  are  morally  far 
higher  and  nobler.  Even  the  simple,  familiar  terms, 
"right"  and  "righteous,"  convey  to  the  spiritual  sense 
a  grander  idea  than  is  conveyed  by  the  word  "just/' 
The  just  is  always  right,  but  the  right  may  be  far 
more  than  is  simply  just.  It  is  just  to  give  the 
exact  reward  which  was  contracted  for,  but  it  might 
be  perfectly  right  and  righteous,  and  the  very  oppo- 
site of  unjust,  to  give  much  more.  It  is  just  to  de- 
mand full  compensation  for  wrong  done,  but  there 
are  cases  where  it  might  be  perfectly  right  and  very 
noble  to  be  satisfied  with  less  ;  noblest  of  all,  freely 
to  forgive  the  wrong,  without  any  compensation. 
Less  reward  and  more  punishment  than  is  deserved 
would  be  injustice;  more  reward  and  less  punish- 
ment would  not  be  justice,  but  it  might  be  perfectly 
righteous,  and  most  wise  and  nobly  generous.  The 
Great  God  is  always  right  and  righteous  in  His 
dealings  with   His   creatures,  but  we  have   found 


116  ETEKNAL   JUSTICE. 

that  He  is  not  just — that  is,  not  merely  just.  Un- 
just He  cannot  be,  but  He  is  always  more  and  better 
than  just,  because  He  is  merciful. 

Much  stress  has  been  laid^  on  what  is  called 
the  essentially  ethical  nature  of  man  and  of  man's 
Maker.  It  is  argued,  that  unless  God  would  stand 
condemned  by  His  own  creatures  and  by  the  consti- 
tution with  which  He  has  endowed  them.  He  must, 
in  His  dealings  with  them,  be  governed  by  the  rule 
of  exact  justice.  The  present  chapter  has  been  a 
virtual,  though  not  formal,  reply  to  such  reasoning. 
It  is  not  doubted  for  a  moment  tliat  there  is  found 
in  human  nature  a  demand  for  justice ;  we  could  not 
live,  society  could  not  be  lield  together  without  it. 
Its  violation,  in  any  case,  inflicts  a  deep  injury  on 
the  common  weal,  and  the  common  nature  protests 
against  it,  and  demands  reparation.     Unquestion- 

1  "The  Atonement:  a  Satisfaction  for  the  Ethical  Nature  both 
of  God  and  Man,"  by  Prof.  Shedd  of  Andover.  Amer.  Bib.  llepo- 
sitory,  October  1859.  The  constant  employment  in  this  essay  of 
the  term  "ethical"  for  "moral" — e.g.,  ethical  nature,  ethical  claims, 
ethical  feelings,  ethical  emotions,  &c.,  &c.,  is  unhappy.  The 
commoner  term  has  precisely  the  same  significance,  and  to  English 
readers  has  greater  directness  and  simplicity.  Except  that  the 
one  is  of  Greek  and  the  other  of  Latin  derivation,  there  is  no 
difference  between  them.  The  essay  is  ingenious,  forcible,  and 
lucid.  For  me,  it  is  enough  to  say,  that  the  sternest  justice 
is  perfectly  satisfied  in  the  case  of  every  transgressor,  because  the 
ordained  penalty  is  always  inflicted  on  sin.  Moreover,  this  quality 
so  much  extolled,  justice,  however  ethical,  is  not  the  noblest  and 
not  the  loftiest  principle  in  the  nature  of  either  God  or  mau. 


ETERNAL   JUSTICE.  117 

ably,  tliis  is  one  side  of  our  humanity,  but  it  forms 
only  half  of  the  truth  respecting  it ;  and,  taken  for  the 
whole  truth,  it  becomes  a  pestilent  falsehood.  We 
demand  justice,  at  the  least  justice,  but  wherever 
it  is  possible  and  consistent,  the  true  soul  cries  out 
vehemently  for  more  than  justice,  necessary  though 
it  be,  and  desires  with  irrepressible  intensity  the 
exercise  of  mercy,  pure,  undeserved  mercy.  We 
wrong  ourselves  grievously,  if  we  forget  that  there 
is  not  only  another,  but  a  far  nobler,  a  diviner 
side  of  our  nature  than  justice,  and  that  man  bows 
down  instinctively,  and  is  formed  by  his  Maker  to 
bow  down  with  loving  reverence,  not  to  what  is 
merely  just,  but  to  what  is  generous  and  forgiving, 
and  disinterested,  and  self-sacrificing.  Mere  justice 
and  no  more,  rectilineal  justice,  is  neither  an  exalted 
nor  an  exalting  quality  in  any  rational  being. 
Only  to  do  what  mere  justice  demands,  when  any- 
thing less,  or  anything  else,  would  be  wrong,  can 
never  command  more  than  complacent  approval. 
We  do  approve  justice,  we  see  it  to  be  good,  to  be 
indispensable,  we  commend  it,  our  nature  demands 
it.  But  there  is  here  no  towering  majesty  of 
virtue,  no  Alpine  grandeur  of  moral  stature,  no 
nobility  and  sublimity  of  goodness,  nothing  to 
kindle  enthusiasm,  to  inspire  lofty  admiration,  to 
touch  and  swell  the  soul  with  wonder  and  with 
love,  and  to   stir  its    deepest    longings    after    the 


118  ETERNAL   JUSTICE. 

divine.  We  do  commend  and  seek  justice,  it  is 
essential,  but  it  is  very  far  from  being  the  highest 
even  among  human  virtues.  Love  of  truth,  un- 
swerving devotion  to  principle,  the  spirit  of  sub- 
mission and  self-sacrifice,  lovingness,  disinterested 
regard  for  others,  above  all,  mercy  to  the  ill-deserv- 
ing and  to  those  who  have  injured  us  without 
cause — not  a  mere  impulse,  not  an  inconsiderate 
and  sudden  rush  of  pity,  but  wise,  deliberate, 
principled  mercy — these,  far  above  mere  rectilineal 
justice,  are  among  the  Grod-like  excellences  of  men ; 
these  form  the  best  and  purest  side  of  our  nature ; 
these  are  the  qualities  which  we  are  formed  to 
admire,  almost  to  worship  ;  these  are  the  mountain 
heights  of  human  virtue ;  justice  is  only  one  of  the 
lower  stages,  from  which  we  look  up  to  these 
grandeurs  above ;  these  are  the  very  divinest  things 
belonging  to  us ;  and  it  is  here,  accordingly,  in  this 
most  sacred  region  of  all,  that  our  Maker  has 
divinely  appealed  to  us. 

The  instinct  of  justice  in  human  nature  is  un- 
questionable ;  but  the  instinct  of  mercy  is  deeper, 
and  is  never  wanting  in  noble  human  souls.  It 
is  God-like  to  forgive,  to  forgive  freely.  Man 
never  rises  so  near  to  the  divine,  as  when  out 
of  a  pure,  free,  self-forgetting,  irrepressible  love,  he 
forgives  causeless  wrong  done  to  him.  No  precept 
of  Christ  has  more  indubitably  the  stamp  of  heaven 


ETERNAL   JUSTICE.  119 

upon  it  than  that  gem  of  all  gems,  which  enriches 
the  New  Testament,  and  which  can  be  found  nowhere 
else,  "  Love  ye  your  enemies."  Never  did  the  Saviour 
of  men  breathe  out  upon  the  world  more  of  the 
deepest  spirit  of  God,  than  when  on  the  cross  he 
prayed,  "  Father,  forgive  them,  they  know  not  what 
they  do."  It  is  divine,  it  is  the  divinest  of  all 
divine  things  to  forgive.  We  feel  it,  we  are  sure 
of  it,  there  is  no  arguing  against  it,  it  is  an  inde- 
structible intuition  of  reason  and  conscience.  God 
would  not  be  God  to  His  human  creatures,  the 
object  of  deepest  veneration,  and  admiration,  and 
love,  if  He  could  not  and  did  not  forgive,  forgive 
freely  and  for  ever. 

But  eternal  justice  abides  nevertheless,  and 
wherever  sin  is,  justice  brings  down  its  inevitable 
doom,  in  terms  of  the  universal  law,  "  Sin  is 
death.''  This  brief,  dark  sentence  might  have 
summed  up  the  entire  history  of  man  and  of  earth. 
On  the  ground  of  mere  justice  alone,  nothing  else 
.  could  have  transpired.  But  there  is  such  an 
attribute  as  divine  mercy,  pure,  free,  unprompted 
mercy.  From  the  beginning,  and  through  many 
agencies  and  influences,  mercy  has  wondrously 
interposed,  not  to  defraud  justice,  but  to  destroy 
sin — to  destroy  sin,  which  is  death,  and  to  create 
holiness,  which  is  life.  At  last,  by  one  amazing 
intervention,   God's    uttermost    was    put    forth  to 


120  ETERNAL   JUSTICE. 

secure  the  double  effect.  By  love,  whose  breadth 
and  length,  and  depth  and  height,  no  mind  can 
compass,  sin  in  the  soul  is  slain,  and  the  inde- 
structible life-germ  of  holiness  is  implanted.  Justice 
receives  all  its  own,  for  with  the  death  of  sin  its 
claim  is  at  an  end,  while  pure  mercy  takes  forth  the 
ransomed,  to  beautify  and  bless  them  for  ever,  in 
the  world  of  light,  and  life,  and  love. 


CHAPTER  V. 

ATONEMENT  AND  SATISFACTION. 

Section  First. — Imagined  Necessity  op  Satisfaction. 
Section  Second.— Satisfaction  foe  Sin  Impossible. 


SECTION  FIRST. 

Imagined  Necessity  of  Satisfaction — 1.  Law — But  Penalty  inflicted 
— 2.  Justice — Never  Defrauded — No  Unsettled  Claims— 3. 
Moral  Government— Not  Dishonoured  or  Overthrown — Its 
Security,  Divine  Self-sacrifice. 

THE  relation  of  human  sin  to  spiritual  law  and 
to  eternal  justice  is  the  great  question  which 
has  long  divided  and  still  divides  honest,  able,  and 
pious  men.  Calm  reflection  on  the  dark  mystery 
of  moral  evil,  its  origin,  its  aspect  towards  the  Great 
Being,  its  action  on  the  spirit  of  man,  and  its  effects 
in  the  universe,  ought  at  least  to  restrain  us  from 
irreverent  dogmatism,  whether  on  the  one  side  or 
the  other.  It  is  not  likely  that  any  solution,  be  it 
what  it  may,  shall  contain  all  the  truth  and  nothing 
but  the  truth.  On  such  a  subject,  it  is  much  more 
probable,  that  the  varying  tendencies  and  conditions 
of  different  minds  shall  sway  them,  both  by  strong 
prepossessions  and  by  as  strong  prejudices,  and  that 
it  shall  be  far  easier  to  point  out,  in  conflicting 
interpretations,   what  is   distinctly  wrong,   than  to 


124  ATONEMENT   AND   SATISFACTION. 

furnisli  what  shall  commend  itself  as  a  true  and 
final  solution. 

These  two  words,  "atonement"  and  "satisfaction," 
are  believed  to  express  the  method  whereby  the 
forgiveness  of  human  sin  can  be  reconciled  with  the 
rectitude  of  the  universe,  and  with  the  authority 
of  the  supreme  Lawgiver.  And  it  is  conceded  most 
readily,  that  very  profound  conceptions  of  the  awful 
nature  of  moral  evil,  of  the  infinite  purity  of  God, 
and  of  the  necessity  of  holiness,  have  had  not  a 
little  to  do  with  the  origination  and  with  the  con- 
tinued prevalence  of  this  belief ;  and  the  moral  value 
of  such  conceptions  can  scarcely  be  exaggerated, 
however  we  may  be  obliged  to  refuse  the  issue  to 
which  they  conduct. 

Without  entering  far  at  present,  as  we  shall  be 
compelled  to  do  hereafter,  on  verbal  criticism,  one  or 
two  brief  statements  of  a  verbal  kind  seem  needful  in 
this  place.  The  English  word  "  atonement "  is  of 
frequent  occurrence  in  the  translation  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures ;  but  its  use  in  them  can  be  investigated 
with  greater  advantage  when  we  come  to  examine 
the  doctrine  of  sacrifice  in  the  economy  of  Moses, 
with  which  that  of  atonement  is  essentially  connected. 
In  the  New  Testament,  the  word  is  only  once  met 
with,  "  By  whom  we  have  received  the  atonement"- 
With  perfect  justice  it  might  have  been  rendered 

1  Eom.  V.  11. 


ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION.  125 

"  reconciliation,"  and  with  greater  propriety,  because 
elsewhere  throughout  the  New  Testament,  the  trans- 
lation is  "reconcile,"  not "  atone."  Three  Greek  words, 
having  the  same  root,  are  used  by  the  New  Testament 
writers,  AicCKKacTGw,  KaTcOCkdaao),  and  ^ AiroKaraX- 
Xdaaco.  If  there  be  a  difference  in  their  meaning  it 
amounts  simply  to  this:  KaraWdaacOjis,  "  I  reconcile;" 
BiaWdaaco,  conveys  that  the  reconciliation  is  mutual ; 
and,  aTTOKaraWdcraco,  is  an  intensive  and  emphatic 
form  of  the  simpler  word.  But  none  of  the  three  can 
admit,  by  any  possibility,  the  scholastic  idea  of  atone- 
ment,— that  is,  expiation.  In  eleven  passages  of  the 
New  Testament,  besides  that  quoted  above,  one  or 
other  of  these  verbs,  or  a  derivative  noun  or  adjec- 
tive, is  found,  and  is  always  translated  "  reconcile  " 
or  "  reconciliation."  "  First  be  reconciled  to  thy 
brother;"!  "Much  more,  being  reconciled ;"^  "If 
the  casting  away  of  them  be  the  reconciling  of  the 
world ; "  3  <'  Qod  hath  reconciled  us  to  himself,  .  .  . 
and  hath  given  to  us  the  ministry  of  reconciliation;"^ 
"  God  was  in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world  unto  him- 
self, .  .  .  committed  unto  us  the  word  of  reconcilia- 
tion;"^ "Might  reconcile  both  (Jews  and  Gentiles) 
in  one  body  .by  the  cross ;"6  The  wife  .  .  .  "be 
reconciled  to  her  husband ;"7  "By  him  to  reconcile 

1  Matt.  V.  24.  2  Rom,  ^,  iq.  ^  Rom.  xi.  15. 

4  2  Cor.  V.  18.  5  2  Cor.  v.  19.  «  Eph.  ii.  16. 

7  1  Cor.  vii.  11. 


126  ATONEMENT   AND   SATISFACTION. 

all  things  (in  earth  and  heaven)  unto  himself;"! 
*'  Yet  now  both  he  reconciled.'"^ 

In  one  other  passage  of  the  New  Testament,  the 
English  noun  "reconciliation"  occurs,  "  To  make  re- 
conciliation for  the  sins  of  the  people. "^  But  the 
original  is  not  one  or  other  of  the  three  words  above- 
named,  but,  eh  TO  IXdcTKeaOao ;  and  it  is  not  a  httle 
remarkable  that,  with  only  seven  exceptions,  out  of 
about  sixty  or  seventy  passages  in  the  Old  Testament, 
where  the  Hebrew  original  is  translated  by  atone  or 
atonement,  the  Septuagint  employs  some  part  or 
derivative  of  this  verb,  tkdcrKOfiai,  or  of  its  compound, 
i^lXao-Ko/jLat.  It  is  perhaps  more  noticeable  still, 
that  in  the  only  passages  of  the  Old  Testament,  eight 
in  number,  where  our  translation  introduces  the  word 
"reconcile,"  the  Septuagint  has  invariably,  IXda-Ko/juaL, 
or  its  compound.  There  may  be  more  in  this  than 
meets  the  casual  eye.  Perhaps  we  shall  find  by  and  by 
a  closer  approximation  in  meaning,  between  the  word 
"  reconcile"  and  the  word  "  atone,"  in  its  true  sense. 

Satisfaction — satisfaction  for  sin,  satisfaction  to 
law  or  to  justice,  satisfaction  to  God  on  account 
of  sin — is  purely  a  term  of  artificial  theology.  It 
does  not  occur  at  all,  either  in  the  Old  or  in  the 
New  Testament,  in  this  or  in  any  kindred  sense. 
To  satisfy,  we  understand,  is  to  content  a  person 
aggrieved.     In  relation  to  God,  as  Dr  Watts,^  in 

1  Col.  i.  20.        2  Col.  L  21.       8  Heb.  ii.  17.        *  Works,  iii.  742. 


ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION.  127 

his  temperate,  gentle  way,  says,  it  is  to  do  some- 
thing which  shall  recompense  Him  for  the  affront 
which  has  been  put  on  His  authority — others  add, 
for  the  injury  caused  by  resistance  and  rebellion — 
something  which  shall  content  and  appease  the 
offended  majesty  of  Heaven.  "  To  atone"  and  ''  to 
satisfy,"  in  artificial  theology,  are  virtually  the  same, 
with  only  this  difference,  that  while  "to  atone"  means 
to  make  reparation  or  amends  for  wrong  done,  "  to 
satisfy  "  conveys  the  additional  idea  that  the  repara- 
tion or  amends  have  been  sufficient,  and  have  con- 
tented the  injured  party.  The  presupposition  lies 
Underneath  both  alike,  that  something  in  the  way 
of  acknowledgment  to  God,  or  expiation,  or  com- 
pensation, something  adequate  and  satisfactory,  must 
be  done  before  human  sin  can  be  pardoned. 

There  are  three  principal  grounds  on  which  this 
necessity  of  satisfaction  is  based,  and  they  shall  now 
be  examined  in  their  order,  but  with  great  brevity, 
because  the  means  of  setting  them  aside  have 
substantially  and  at  full  length  been  supplied  in 
the  earlier  chapters. 

I.  The  law  of  God,  it  is  alleged,  has  been  dis- 
honoured by  disobedience,  and  its  authority,  trampled 
under  foot  of  men,  has  been  fatally  damaged.  The 
dishonour  must  be  wiped  out,  and  the  damaged 
authority  must  be  reasserted  and  re-established. 

Were  the  supposed  dishonour  and  damage  real, 


128  ATONEMENT  AND   SATISFACTION. 

the  necessity  argued  for  would  be  imperative.  But 
are  they  real  ?  Is  authority  really  weakened  simply 
by  being  resisted,  and  when  it  is  perfectly  able  to 
overcome  and  put  down  the  resistance?  Is  a  law 
really  dishonoured  by  the  simple  fact  of  its  being 
violated,  when  it  is  perfectly  able  to  avenge  itself  ? 
Most  persons  would  be  ready  to  think  that  the  entire 
dishonour,  in  such  a  case,  would  fall,  along  with  the 
punishment,  on  the  violator,  and  that  the  law  would 
stand  uninjured  and  erect.  A  law,  any  law,  human 
or  divine,  is  honoured  up  to  the  highest  limit  of  pos- 
sibility, simply  when  it  is  maintained  in  all  its  force, 
in  spite  of  all  resistance;  when  its  provisions,  in 
themselves  wise  and  right  and  good,  are  found  to  be 
comprehensive  and  complete ;  and  when  its  penal 
sanctions,  perfectly  adequate  and  perfectly  just,  are 
carried  out  invariably,  without  partiality  and  without 
prejudice.  It  would  be  real  dishonour  to  law  if  there 
were  any  indirect  evasion  of  its  terms,  or  any  sup- 
plementing or  subsidising  of  its  provisions.  It  would 
be  real  dishonour  to  law  if,  for  example,  a  case 
should  arise,  clearly  within  the  range  which  it  was 
intended  to  embrace,  which  its  fixed  provisions  were 
inadequate  to  meet,  a  case  therefore  which  necessi- 
tated a  new  enactment,  enforced  by  a  new  penalty. 
This  would  reveal  defect  in  the  original  statute,  and 
want  of  comprehension  and  foresight  in  the  lawgiver. 
But  is  there  any  such  inherent  imperfection  in  the 


ATOI^EMENT   AND    SATISFACTION.  129 

spiritual  laws  of  the  universe,  or  in  the  divine  Law- 
giver ?  As  a  matter  of  necessity,  spiritual  laws  con- 
templated disobedience.  Every  law  does,  and  must. 
When  then,  in  the  government  of  God,  disobedience 
occurred,  was  the  law  found  unequal  to  the  occasion, 
and  were  its  penalties  proved  to  be  insufficient,  al- 
though the  Only  Wise  and  Holy  One  had  ordained 
them  ?  It  has  already  been  shown  that  the  divine 
penalty,  perfect!}''  righteous  and  perfectly  adequate  in 
the  judgment  of  Grod,  is  inflicted  without  exception 
and  without  fail.  It  has  already  been  shown  that 
sin,  in  the  human  soul,  is  moral  death ;  always, 
everywhere,  without  exception,  it  is  moral  death, 
that  is,  eternal  death  begun.  Where  is  dishonour? 
On  the  contrary,  the  very  highest  honour  possible  is 
herein  done  to  the  divine  law  and  to  the  divine  Law- 
giver. Tlie  idea  of  acknowledgment,  expiation,  re- 
paration, compensation  from  without,  would  su])pose 
defect  within,  and  would  be  an  affront  and  a  disgrace. 
Such  reparation  is  not  only  not  needed,  but  is  strictly 
incongruous  and  impossible.  The  ordained  penalty 
having  been  impartially  inflicted,  the  law  is  verified 
and  made  honourable  by  itself — unless,  indeed,  wo 
can  imagine  that  God  has  been  at  fault  and  has 
adjudged  a  punishment  which  is  found  insufficient 
for  the  offence. 

With    any   subsequent,   foreign    proceeding,   the 
law  has  nothing  to  do,  and  neither  suggests  nor 


130  ATONEMENT    AND    SATISFACTION. 


ignores  such  a  thing.  The  rescuing  of  the  trans- 
gressor, on  whom  punishment  has  descended  and 
in  whom  it  is  working  out  its  dread  effect,  law 
does  not  provide  for,  but  as  little  does  it  forbid. 
And  it  argues  no  defect  and  no  error,  that  it  re- 
cognises and  can  recognise  nothing  of  this  nature, 
because  it  lies  wholly  outside  its  province.  Beyond 
prohibitions  and  commands,  penalties  and  their 
impartial  infliction,  law  has  no  voice,  whether  to 
encourage  or  to  deter.  But  no  possible  dishonour 
is  done ;  on  the  contrary,  a  new  glory  is  reflected 
back  upon  it,  when,  without  trenching  in  the  least 
on  its  sacred  province,  and  in  quite  another  region, 
over  which  it  has  no  control,  a  work  of  pure  mercy 
is  achieved,  in  harmony  with  infinite  holiness  and 
infinite  wisdom.  "  Sing,  0  ye  heavens,  for  the  Lord 
hath  done  it :  shout,  ye  lower  parts  of  the  earth ; 
break  forth  into  singing,  yo  mountains,  0  forest, 
and  every  tree  therein :  for  the  Lord  hath  redeemed 
Jacob,  and  glorified  himself  in  Israel." 

II.  Justice  demands  and  must  receive  satisfaction. 
It  is  argued  that  were  the  transgressors  of  God's  law 
to  escape,  claims  the  most  righteous  would  be  set 
aside  and  justice  would  be  publicly  dishonoured. 
But  we  have  found  that  the  transgressors  of  God's 
law  never  do  and  never  can  escape,  that  no  righteous 
claim  is  or  ever  can  be  set  aside,  and  that  justice, 
instead  of  being  dishonoured,  is  inflexible  and  in- 


ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION.  131 

exorable  within  its  proper  sphere.  It  would  be  a 
calamity,  the  most  fatal  to  the  universe  of  being, 
that  a  shadow  of  doubt  should  for  a  moment  rest 
on  the  perfect  rectitude  of  the  Great  Kuler.  But 
no  such  doubt  can  ever  cast  its  shadow  in  this 
sacred  direction.  And  it  has  been  our  work  in 
the  earlier  chapters  to  make  good  these  confi- 
dent assertions,  which  in  this  place  are  simply  re- 
iterated. 

Keference  has  already  been  made  to  Professor 
Shedd's  Essay  on  the  Doctrine  of  Atonement. i  As 
the  most  recent,  perhaps  among  the  most  ingenious 
of  the  modes  of  representing  this  article  of  faith,  it 
may  be  of  importance  to  condense  its  purport,  and 
as  nearly  as  possible  in  its  own  words.  Moral 
reason  and  conscience  in  man,  the  Professor  argues, 
form  the  highest  part  of  the  moral  image  of  his 
Maker.  This  has  the  closest  affinity  with  the  nature 
of  God,  and  is  a  faithful  index  of  what  that  nature 
must  be.  This  is  the  relic  of  primitive  kindred- 
ness  with  the  First  Perfect,  and  furnishes  a  clue  to 
the  character  and  the  procedure  of  the  Most  High. 
Justice  is  the  very  substratum  of  the  divine  essence, 
and  any  method  ot  pardon  must  first  give  plenary 
satisfaction  to  this  attribute.  God  cannot  and  must 
not  disturb  His  own  ethical  tranquillity,  His  own 
eternal   sense  of  righteousness.     In  this  view,   the 

^  American  Biblical  Repository,  Oct.  1859. 


132  ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION. 

doctrine  of  expiation  contains  a  metaphysique,  and 
is  defensible  at  the  bar  of  philosophic  reason. 
"  God,  by  and  through  a  judicial  inflection  of  His 
own  providing,  and  His  own  enduring  in  the 
person  of  His  Son — Himself  the  Judge,  Himself 
the  Priest,  Himself  the  sacrifice — conciliates  His 
own  holy  justice  towards  the  guilty."  '  We  need 
primarily  to  be  saved  from  the  judicial  displeasure 
of  that  immaculate  Spirit,  in  whose  character  and 
ethical  feeling  towards  sin  the  human  conscience 
itself  has  its  eternal  ground  and  authority."  The 
atoning  sacrifice  of  the  God -man  renders  pro- 
pitious towards  the  transgressor  that  particular 
side  of  the  divine  nature,  and  that  one  specific 
emotion  of  the  living  God,  which  otherwise  and 
without  it,  would  be  displacent.  "  God's  holy  justice 
is  conciliated  to  guilty  man." 

These  statements,  I  venture  to  think  and  have 
attempted  in  the  foregoing  pages  to  prove,  pro- 
ceed on  a  total  misapprehension.  It  is  not  merely, 
that  justice  in  the  sense  already  explained  is  far 
from  being,  as  it  is  here  supposed  to  be,  the  highest 
attribute  in  the  ethical  nature  either  of  God  or 
of  man,  but  the  simple  fact  is,  that  be  the  rank 
of  this  divine  attribute  what  it  may,  we  shdUld 
err  egregiously  in  imagining  that  its  rightful  claims 
ever  are,  or  ever  can  be,  set  aside.  They  cannot 
be  set  aside  for  a  moment,  and  precisely  for  this 


ATONEMENT    AND    SATISFACTION.  133 

reason,  they  never  require  and  never  can  admit  of 
a  supplementary  satisfaction  from  any  quarter 
whatever.  The  righteous  verdict  of  Heaven  against 
all  moral  evil  is,  in  every  instance,  carried  out 
inexorably.  As  surely  as  a  soul  sins,  in  that 
moment  it  dies  morally,  that  is,  it  begins  to  die, 
and  in  the  degree  in  which  it  sins  it  begins  to  die. 
Even  where  a  new  divine  life  has  afterwards  been 
enkindled  within  it,  and  has  proved  itself  the 
stronger  power,  so  long  as  sin  remains  and  to  the 
extent  in  which  it  remains,  death,  moral  death, 
never  ceases  to  mingle  its  poison  with  the  breath 
of  a  higher  life.  There  is  no  possibility  of  de- 
frauding and  dishonouring  eternal  justice,  no  pos- 
sibility of  setting  aside  its  unalterable  sentence. 

As  for  any  method  of  putting  an  end  to  sin,  and 
thus  to  the  penalty  which  sin  insures,  justice  has 
not  a  word  to  utter,  either  against  it  or  for  it.  But, 
since  the  claim  of  justice  is  founded  solely  on  the 
presence  of  sin  in  the  soul,  if  sin  were  expelled,  and, 
so  far  as  it  was  expelled,  the  claim  would  cease,  and 
the  process  of  perdition  would  thus  far  terminate. 
In  redeeming  and  saving  men,  the  Great  God 
touches  not  by  a  hair's-breadth  the  course  of  per- 
fect rectitude.  It  is  in  quite  another  region,  that 
of  pure  grace,  without  disregarding  a  single  right- 
eous claim — it  is  through  the  medium  of  His  Al- 
mighty love — that  God  puts  sin  in  the  human  soul 


134  ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION. 

to  death,  or  rather,  that  He  originates  a  process 
which  issues  at  last  in  the  destruction  of  sin.  In 
the  end,  mercy  triumphs  over  sin ;  but  justice,  all 
the  while,  is  not  undermined,  but  maintained  and 
glorified.  There  is  no  compromise,  no  ingenious 
expedient  for  meeting  an  unforeseen  emergency,  and 
for  helping  out  what  had  proved  to  be  inadequate. 
There  is  no  tampering  with  the  letter  or  the  spirit 
of  a  precept,  for  the  sake  of  indirectly  gaining  a 
purpose,  however  benignant ;  there  is  no  arbitrary 
substitution  of  one  kind  of  punishment  for  another ; 
and  no  carrying  out  of  a  judicial  verdict  in  form, 
but  evading  it  in  fact.  All  is  clear,  real,  simple, 
direct,  founded  in  rectitude  and  truth.  Eternal 
justice,  which  insures  penalty  wherever  there  is  sin, 
offers  and  can  offer  no  obstruction  to  the  putting 
away  of  sin,  if  that  be  possible.  On  the  contrary, 
it  distinctly  favours  this  issue,  for  its  deliverance 
on  the  one  side,  "  holiness  is  life,"  is  as  sacred  and 
as  sure  as  its  deliverance  on  the  other  side,  "  sin  is 
death."  Almighty  mercy  wings  its  course  towards 
a  result,  all-worthy  of  God,  without  a  murmur,  from 
the  sternest  justice,  or  from  the  holiest  statutes  of 
Heaven. 

III.  The  moral  government  of  the  universe  would 
be  endangered,  if  sin  were  simply  pardoned,  in  the 
absence  of  an  atonement — an  adequate  atonement 
— such  as  was  made  by  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  on 


ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION.  135 

tlie  cross.  It  is  argued,  with  great  truth  and  force, 
that  if,  in  pardoning  human  sin,  God  acted  on  the 
mere  impulse  of  mercy,  this  would  have  the  effect 
of  a  cruel  temptation,  placed  before  all  intelligent 
creatures — a  temptation  to  sin — since  they  might 
sin  with  such  safety.  They  might  then  reason,  with 
perfect  accuracy,  that  evil  could  not  be  the  atrocious 
thing  which  it  is  declared  to  be,  and  that  God's 
infinite  abhorrence  of  it  must  be  a  fiction.  A  mere 
impulse,  however  nobly  generous,  is  not  a  safe  ground, 
not  honourable,  and  not  consistent,  on  which  to 
place  the  remission  of  sin  and  of  merited  punishment. 
It  is  admitted,  unqualifiedly,  that  it  would  be 
fatal  to  imagine  human  sin  pardoned,  in  the  weak- 
ness and  fervour  of  a  mere  emotion.  All  must  con- 
sent that  such  a  thing  is  impossible  to  the  Supreme 
Mind.  And  hence  we  have  already  proved  that,  in 
the  divine  redemption,  sin  is  not  forgiven  merely, 
but  is  literally,  though  gradually,  killed  in  the  soul. 
It  would  be  strictly  true  to  say  that  it  is  always  first 
struck  at,  in  order  that  it  may  be  thoroughly  de- 
stroyed, and  that  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  killed  and 
cast  out  of  the  nature  is  it  ever  really  done  with 
and  passed  by.  God's  only  dealing  with  sin.  His 
first  and  His  entire  action  upon  it  to  the  last,  evinces 
nothing  but  eternal  and  unutterable  abhorrence. 
Instead  of  mere,  soft  obliviousness,  as  if  it  were  a 
thing  unimportant  and  easily  overlooked,  God  be- 


136  ATONEMENT    AND    SATISFACTION. 


gins  by  aiming  a  deadly  blow  at  the  heart  in  which 
it  lies,  or  rather,  at  that  in  the  heart  which  He 
hates,  and  will  not,  cannot  endure.  And  the  means 
whereby  this  blow  is  aimed,  and  the  weapon  which 
the  Almighty  hand  wields,  are  fitted  and  intended 
to  produce  unmingled  awe  throughout  the  universe. 

The  stupendous  mystery  of  Incarnation  looms 
solemnly  on  the  farthest  verge  of  the  horizon  of 
human  thought.  It  is  verily  a  symbol  of  love, 
but  the  love  is  so  unfathomable  that  we  tremble 
to  gaze  down  into  it.  And  love  is  associated  with 
a  wisdom  so  unsearchable  and  so  vast,  and  with  a 
holiness  so  transcendent  and  so  pure,  that  the 
conception,  when  it  is  even  distantly  approached,  is 
overwhelming.  Did  the  Great  Being  who  filleth 
eternity  and  immensity  vail  Himself  in  the  form 
of  man?  Astonishment  deepens  as  we  ask.  Did 
He  so  pity  His  earthly  children,  that  to  make 
them  hate  the  evil  which  was  separating  them 
from  Him,  He  came  down  among  them  as  one 
of  themselves?  And  did  The  Incarnate  live  on 
this  earth,  only  to  be  despised  and  rejected  ?  Had 
he  to  bear  the  contradiction  and  scorn  of  the 
world,  and  to  suffer  on  a  cross?  It  was  so,  in 
very  truth.  Talk  of  public  justice  and  of  the 
administration  of  the  universe  !  Talk  of  salutary 
terror  and  of  the  atrocity  of  moral  evil !  Is  it 
possible   to   conceive   of   any   method,  any  jmnish- 


ATONEMENT    AND    SATISFACTION.  137 


ment  of  actual  transgressors,  so  omnipotent  in  its 
moral  influence,  as  this  blended  revelation  of  love 
and  power,  of  holiness  and  wisdom  ?  Never  was 
God  in  such  earnest  to  guard  the  foundations  of 
His  moral  government,  to  awaken  in  His  creatures 
the  profoundest  sentiments  of  fear  on  the  one  hand 
and  of  love  on  the  other,  to  exhibit  the  enormity 
of  moral  evil,  and  to  prove  His  irreconcilal)le  repug- 
nance to  it.  Never  was  God  in  such  earnest,  to 
speak  intelHgibly  and  impressively,  to  the  whole 
rational  creation,  to  reach  down  to  the  deepest 
spring  of  created  intelligence  and  emotion,  to  touch 
humanity  at  its  innermost  centre,  to  draw  back 
Ilis  erring  creatures  irresistibly  from  evil,  and  to 
attach  them  by  a  loving  allegiance  to  His  govern- 
ment and  His  throne. 

God's  self-sacrifice  in  Christ,  God's  self-sacrifice 
for  human  transgression  !  That  is  the  holy  region, 
around  which  the  Great  Being  seeks  to  gather  His 
lost  children ;  that  is  the  honourable,  the  consistent, 
the  safe  ground,  on  which  He  forgives,  by  destroying 
human  sin.  And  it  is  thus,  that  our  Lord  Christ  not 
only  has  made,  but  really  is,  a  true  atonement — not 
in  the  sense  of  scholastic  theology,  the  sense  of  offer- 
ing expiation,  compensation,  reparation  to  God  for 
sin,  but  in  the  New  Testament  meaning  of  the  word, 
reconciliation.  Christ  has  both  effected  the  recon- 
ciliation of  men  to   God,  and  he  is  himself    the 


138  ATONEMENT   AND   SATISFACTION. 


point  and  the  source  of  reconciliation.  That 
English  word  "  atone"  may  have  one  or  other  of  two 
distinct  derivations,  but  it  must  have  the  one  or 
the  other.  It  may  be  to  at-one,  to  bring  to  one, 
to  reconcile  two  conflicting  parties.  Or  it  may 
be  to  a-tone,  to  bring  to  one  tone,  to  attune,  to 
harmonise.  In  either  case  it  is  clear  that,  ety- 
mologically,  the  English  "  atone  "  is  precisely  equi- 
valent to  reconcile ;  and  this  naturally  enough 
accounts  for  the  fact  already  noticed,  that  the  trans- 
lators of  the  New  Testament  have  rendered  the 
same  Greek  term,  in  one  instance* "  atone,"  and  in 
the  other  instances  "  reconcile." 


SECTION  SECOND. 

Satisfaction  for  Sin  not  Possible— 1.  The  Fact  of  Sin ;  2.  Its  Cri- 
minality ;  3.  Its  Power  for  Evil  Unchangeable — Sin  Destroyed 
and  Forgiven — Divine  Anger — How  Inappeasable — Anger  and 
Love  in  Cross — Destruction  of  Sin  in  Soul — This,  Salvation. 

IF,  as  Las  been  shown,  spiritual  laws  need  no 
satisfaction,  and  are  perfectly  satisfied;  if 
eternal  justice  needs  no  satisfaction,  and  is  per- 
fectly satisfied;  if  the  moral  government  of  God 
needs  no  satisfaction ;  if  it  has  not  been  damaged, 
and  is  not  capable  of  being  damaged;  if  the  bare 
suspicion  of  such  a  thing  be  most  dishonouring 
to  the  Great  Kuler, — we  may  venture  to  ask,  how 
can  any  atonement,  in  the  scholastic  sense,  act 
upon  human  sin,  or  be  related  to  it  in  any  way? 
How  can  it  touch  human  sin  at  all  ?  There  are  at 
least  three  points  at  which  contact  or  influence  is 
impossible. 

1.  The  fact  of  sin  is  immovable.  That  it  has 
been  perpetrated,  abides  true  for  ever.  Be  its 
time,  or  its  place,  or  its  kind,  or  its  amount,  what 


140  ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION, 

they  may,  it  can  never  be  blotted  out.  True  once, 
it  is  true  always.  The  fact  must  remain  as  sure 
as  at  the  first  moment.  At  any  point  in  the  future, 
it  shall  be  true,  that  thousands  or  myriads  of  ages 
before,  in  such  and  such  circumstances,  I  perpetrated 
a  wicked  deed,  or  formed  a  wicked  purpose,  that 
conscious  evil  was  in  my  soul,  and  that  my  will 
resisted  the  will  of  God  and  chose  what  I  knew  to 
be  wrong.  That  fact  is  immortal  as  my  being. 
No  atonement  can  ever  alter  it.  Nothing,  absolutely 
nothing,  can  touch  it  in  the  slightest  conceivable 
degree. 

2.  The  criminality  of  sin  is  unalterable ;  what- 
ever enormity  belonged  to  it  at  the  moment  of  its 
commission,  belongs  to  it  for  ever.  A  thousand 
substitutes,  bearing  a  thousand  punishments,  each 
a  thousand  times  heavier  than  was  at  the  first 
merited,  could  not  remove  one  iota  from  the  cri- 
minality of  the  original  transgression.  A  certain 
character  and  degree  of  wickedness  attached  to  it 
at  the  time ;  it  attaches  to  it  through  all  eternit}^ 
When  myriads  of  ages  have  passed  away,  it  shall 
remain  as  true  as  ever,  that  such  and  such,  and  no 
other,  was  the  exact  amount  of  moral  turpitude  in 
the  offence. 

3.  The  power  for  evil,  which  inheres  in  sin, 
never  dies,  except  with  itself.  Sin  is  essentially 
self-perpetuative   and   self-propagative.      Evil  in  a 


ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION.  141 

soul  goes  forth,  like  a  diseased  breath,  into  another 
soul,  acts  on  it  insidiously,  and  begets  new  sin  in 
it.  The  second  breathes  infection  into  a  third, 
and  the  third  into  a  fourth.  In  ever-increasing 
ratio,  the  numbers  multiply  and  the  evil  spreads 
indefinitely  —  eternally.  No  atonement,  (in  the 
scholastic  sense,)  no  expiation  of  sin,  can  touch, 
in  the  slightest  degree,  this  polluting,  corrupting 
energy,  which  lies  in  the  essential  nature  of  moral 
evil.  Wherever  sin  exists,  even  God  could  not 
separate  this  energy  from  it.  Sin  and  power  for 
evil  are  connected  unalterably,  as  cause  and  effect. 
The  effect  must  follow,  if  the  cause  be  present. 
But  the  cause  itself  may  perish,  and  herein  lies  the 
only  hope  of  sinful  humanity.  So  long  as  sin  lives 
in  the  soul,  the  poisonous  exhalation,  the  corrupt- 
ing energy,  must  go  forth  from  it.  But  sin  may 
die — may  be  wounded  and  finally  killed,  and  cast 
forth,  and  then  its  power  for  evil  necessarily  dies 
with  it.  The  fact  that  it  was  perpetrated  is  im- 
mortal, the  exact  amount  of  criminality  which 
inhered  in  it  can  never  be  lessened,  but  the  prin- 
ciple, the  root  out  of  which  it  grew  and  in  whicli 
it  lives,  the  sin  itself,  may  be  wounded  to  death. 
And  so,  in  like  manner,  may  the  sin  which  it 
begat  in  another  soul,  and  the  sin  which  that  again 
begat,  and  all  the  sins  which  issued  from  one  dark 
centre:   they  may  all  be  made  to  perish  and  die. 


142  ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION. 

The  germ  of  evil  in  the  heart  may  be  struck  at,  a 
blow  divinely  aimed  shall  be  effective,  and  sin, 
pierced  through  by  redeeming  love,  shall  begin  to 
die,  and  all  its  fatal  power  shall  die  with  it.  In- 
stead of  love  of  evil,  there  shall  be  an  ever-deepening 
love  of  good  and  of  truth ;  instead  of  separation, 
there  shall  be  nearness  of  heart  to  God  in  Christ ; 
and  instead  of  chosen  rebelliousness  and  resistance, 
there  shall  be  a  new,  and  reverent,  and  loving 
kindredness  with  Heaven,  and,  through  all,  a  new 
power  within,  for  good,  not  evil,  shall  be  created. 

Nothing  can  be  done  with  sin,  with  conscious,  vo- 
luntary evil  in  the  heart,  except  killing  it  outright. 
The  process  may  be  gradual,  but  it  must  be  mortal 
from  the  first.  What  sin  has  been,  it  has  been ;  what 
it  has  done,  it  has  done, — that  is  the  last  that  can  be 
said.  No  expiation,  or  compensation,  or  reparation, 
or  amends,  can  touch  these  standing  facts.  There 
they  are,  for  ever  and  ever  unalterable.  The  only 
thing  possible,  the  only  thing  which  can  in  the  least 
avail,  is  to  strike  the  root  itself,  out  of  which  evil 
springs ;  to  strike  a  mortal  blow,  the  sure,  though 
gradual,  effect  of  which  shall  be  the  destruction  and 
extirpation  of  sin.  And  this  is  what  Grod  does.  Sin 
in  the  soul  can  be  killed ;  it  has  been  killed  ;  the  re- 
deeming, reconciling  God  in  Christ  Jesus  is  killing 
the  sin  of  the  world.  This  is  His  noblest  work 
among   men, — killing  sin   and  enkindling  love,   a 


ATONEMENT    AND    SATISFACTION.  143 

godly,  manly,  holy  love,  the  seed-spark  of  eternal 
life. 

But  if  sin  be  really  inexpiable  in  the  sense  already 
explained,  what  place  is  left  for  the  atonement  of 
scholastic  theology  ?  What  can  it  do  ?  Whom  can 
it  affect  ?  Shall  we  suppose — and  this  is  the  last  and 
the  only  other  thing  that  can  be  supposed — that  there 
is  something  in  the  mind  of  God,  some  irritation  and 
provocation  which  needs  to  be  soothed  and  quieted, 
some  sense  of  injury,  some  feeling  of  wounded  and 
offended  dignity  which  demands  satisfaction  ?  This 
is,  in  literal  truth,  supposed,  and  sanctions  itself  by 
the  language  of  the  Scriptures. 

In  the  New  Testament,  we  meet,  though  seldom, 
with  such  expressions  as  these :  "  The  wrath  to 
come,"  "  The  day  of  wrath,"  "  Being  saved  from 
wrath,"  "  The  cup  of  the  wrath  of  God."  In  the  Old 
Testament,  this  kind  of  phraseology  is  more  frequent, 
much  stronger,  and  more  vehement :  "  The  fierce 
anger  of  the  Lord,"  "  The  fierceness  of  His  wrath," 
"  The  fire,"  even  "  the  fury  of  His  anger."  Such  lan- 
guage, applicable  to  one  aspect  of  the  divine  nature, 
does  not  stand  alone,  but  is  only  in  keeping  with  the 
whole  of  the  representations  given  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment of  the  person,  the  attributes,  and  the  doings  of 
the  Most  High.  They  are  often  intensely  figurative, 
do  not  admit  of  a  literal  rendering,  but  demand  a 
spiritual  and  very  modified  interpretation.     "  The 


144  ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION. 

eyes  of  the  Lord,"  "  the  hand,"  "  the  arm,"  ''  the 
feet,"  "  the  face,"  "  the  mouth  of  the  Lord,"  are  fami- 
liar to  readers  of  the  Bible,  create  no  difficulty,  and 
are  intelligible  and  impressive,  although  literally  they 
must  be  altogether  untrue.  And  farther,  we  have  to 
bear  in  mind,  that  not  only  anger  and  wrath  and  fury, 
but  other  even  distinctly  weak  and  bad  jmssions  are 
ascribed  to  God, — such,  for  example,  as  revenge  and 
jealousy  and  remorse,  at  least,  repentant  regret  and 
cruel  irony  and  mockery  "  It  repented  the  Lord 
that  He  had  made  man  on  the  earth,  and  it  grieved 
Him  at  His  heart."  i  We  can  have  no  difficulty  in 
understanding  from  such  a  passage,  the  reality  and 
the  strength  of  divine  sympathy  in  human  affairs.  It 
is  clear  that  the  Jehovah  of  the  Bible,  even  in  its 
earliest  revelations,  is  no  "  Jupiter  Maximus,"  ada- 
mantine and  impassive.  The  fate  of  the  world 
touches  the  divine  heart,  and  awakens  in  it  the  most 
tender  and  profound  emotions,  affects  it  to  such  a 
degree,  that,  had  it  been  a  human  being  who  was  so 
moved,  he  must  have  given  way  to  regret,  remorse, 
and  griei  Such  affections  in  God  are  impossible,  but 
we  are  taught  that  divine  pity  is  as  real  and  as  deep, 
as  if  God  were  capable  of  repentance  and  of  grief. 
A  second  and  stronger  passage  will  be  found  in  Prov. 
i.  24:  "Because  I  have  called,  and  ye  refused;  I 
have  stretched  out  my  hands,  and  no  man  regarded  , 

1  Gen.  vi.  6. 


ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION.  145 

but  ye  have  set  at  nought  all  mj  counsel,  and  would 
none  of  my  reproof:  I  also  will  laugh  at  your  cala- 
mity ;  I  will  mock  when  your  fear  cometh."  The 
truth  conveyed,  through  this  appalling  medhim,  we 
can  scarcely  fail  to  perceive  ,  it  is  the  utter  hopeless- 
ness of  those  who  have  often  and  long,  but  in  vain, 
been  reproved  and  warned  and  complained  of  and 
remonstrated  with.  Their  doom  is  as  inevitable  as  if 
God  really  rejoiced  in  what  was  so  richly  deserved,  as 
if  He  could  even  make  it  subject  of  bitter  mockery 
and  scorn.  There  is  not  a  passage  in  the  whole 
Bible  where  the  literal  sense  is  so  tremendously  blas- 
phemous. The  very  tone  is  fearful,  but  the  underly- 
ing idea  is  obvious,  and  the  impression  conveyed  by 
the  words,  rightly  interpreted,  is  only  wholesome  and 
just. 

We  are  surely  justified  in  adopting  a  similar 
method  of  interpretation,  in  the  case  of  all  those 
passages,  whether  in  the  Old  or  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament, which  in  various  forms  ascribe  fierce 
wrath  and  fury  to  the  Almighty.  The  literal 
sense  cannot  be  entertained  for  a  moment,  and  so 
far  as  I  am  aware,  no  school  of  theologians  or  inter- 
preters worthy  of  consideration  holds  it  possible  to 
accept  it.  But  in  rejecting  the  literal  sense,  we  only 
act  in  accordance  with  those  general  principles  which 
govern  all  languages,  and  especially  with  the  known 
laws  of  Eastern  writing.     When  God  is  represented 

K 


146  ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION. 

as  wounded  by  the  sins  of  men,  goaded  by  the  desire 
of  retaliation,  provoked  to  vehement  indignation,  and 
inflamed  with  burning  wrath,  and  with  an  ungovern- 
able fury  of  resentment,  the  fundamental  idea,  the 
one  only  idea,  must  be  divine  abhorrence  of  sin.  It 
is  as  if  sin  were  a  personal  assault  and  affront  to 
God;  it  is  as  if,  in  His  deep  abhorrence  and  His 
unslumbering  vigilance,  God  made  it  His  own 
proper  work  to  detect  and  to  punish  sin ;  it  is  as 
if  He  came  into  direct  and  direful  collision  with 
transgressors,  and  as  if  all  the  greater  and  the 
lesser  evils  which  come  forth  in  the  evolution  of 
the  vast  system  of  providence  were  inflicted,  and 
inflicted  with  supreme  satisfaction,  immediately  and 
directly,  by  His  hand.  Nor  may  it  be  overlooked, 
that  the  visitations  which  come  down  on  wicked 
men  are  often  such  as,  if  inflicted  by  a  human 
being,  would  evince  fierce  anger  and  implacable 
revenge.  But  there  is  no  revenge  in  God.  No 
sane  man  could  endure  the  thought  for  a  moment. 
There  is,  there  can  be  no  perturbation  in  the 
Supreme  nature,  no  violence,  nothing  to  which 
the  name  of  passion  could  be  given.  It  is  impos- 
sible. The  idea  is  fearfully  dishonouring  to  God ; 
is  wholly  and  only  impious.  But  it  abides  so- 
lemnly true,  nevertheless,  that  there  is  anger,  lite- 
rally and  really  anger,  in  God  against  sin.     Let  us, 


ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION.  147 

with  great  reverence  and  carefulness,  try  to  discrimi- 
nate what  precisely  this  statement  involves. 

That  human  emotion,  to  which  we  give  the 
name  "  anger/'  contains  two,  and  only  two  elements ; 
a  strong  feeling  of  displeasure  at  wrong  done,  and 
a  desire  as  strong  to  put  down  the  wrong.  This 
affection,  with  perfect  truth,  is  attributed  to  the 
Great  Being,  but  with  a  necessary  and  obvious 
difference — namely,  that  the  desire  leading  to  effort 
to  put  down  sin  is  rendered  needless  by  the  or- 
dained course  of  the  universe,  for  spiritual  law 
itself  necessitates  the  instant  punishment  {>f  sin. 
Anger,  therefore,  in  the  divine  mind  is  simply  and 
only  deep,  settled  displeasure — no  more;  without 
perturbation  or  passion,  without  resentment  or  re- 
venge. God's  anger  against  sin  is  a  profound,  calm, 
pure  feeling  of  unmixed  abhorrence,  the  intensity 
and  the  unalterableness  of  which  it  is  not  possible 
to  exaggerate.  It  is  this  and  no  more.  The  Holy 
One  alone  comprehends  sin,  its  entire  moral  tur- 
pitude, the  enmity,  the  defiance  to  Himself,  the 
disregard  of  law,  and  the  despite  to  conscience  and 
reason  in  which  it  originates  and  which  it  involves. 
The  Holy  One  alone  comprehends  the  entire  course 
of  sin,  through  time,  into  the  eternal  ages,  the 
subtle  process  whereby  all  good  is  gradually  effaced, 
and  passion  and  evil  desire  and  utter  self-will  be- 


148  ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION. 

come  rampant  and  tyrannic,  the  thick  darkness  in 
which  the  spirit  may  be  wrapped,  and  the  unmiti- 
gated vileness  which  is  possible  to  it,  and  how  that 
nature  which  He  formed  to  be  like  Himself,  may  be 
damned  in  misery  and  infamy.  The  Holy  One 
alone  comprehends  how  sin,  once  introduced,  spreads 
like  a  plague,  and  creates  disorder  and  rebellion 
throughout  tlie  universe,  and  becomes  a  fountain 
of  pollution  and  of  darkness — of  crime  and  of  suf- 
fering. 

Sin  is  the  only  thing  within  the  limits  of  im- 
mensity which  God  hates,  infinitely,  eternally  hates, 
hates  because  of  its  own  hideous  and  foul  nature, 
hates  because  it  is  the  degradation,  the  curse  and 
the  ruin  of  the  souls  He  hath  made  and  loves.  But 
let  it  be  well  and  deeply  pondered,  that  this  holy 
divine  anger  can  admit  of  no  atonement.  God's 
displeasure  against  sin  can  never  be  appeased,  never 
changed  in  the  slightest  degree.  Instead  of  any 
possible  atonement,  sin,  in  this  regard,  is  neces- 
sarily and  for  ever  inexpiable.  Divine  antipathy  to 
sin  is  not  a  judicial,  official  emotion,  but  a  genuine, 
profound,  unalterable  abhorrence,  springing  out  of 
the  essential  nature  of  God,  and  out  of  the  essential 
nature  of  moral  evil.  Were  moral  evil  utterly  put 
away,  extirpated  and  expelled,  were  the  sin  which 
lies  in  the  soul  put  to  death,  the  only  cause  of 
divine  anger  would  be  removed ;  but  so  long  as  sin 


ATONEMENT    AND    SATISFACTION.  149 

remains,  in  .  any  amount  or  degree,  nothing  can 
alter  the  feeling  in  relation  to  it,  with  which  the 
divine  mind  is  possessed.  Ten  thousand  sacrifices, 
each  priceless  in  itself,  could  not  change  or  modify 
in  the  least,  God's  infinite  hatred  of  sin.  In  this 
regard,  the  Holy  One  can  never  be  placated,  never 
pacified,  never  conciliated ;  that  is  to  say,  sin,  exist 
where  it  may,  there,  where  it  exists,  can  never  be 
anything  but  God's  eternal  abhorrence.  Nothing  can 
ever  in  the  slightest  degree  touch  the  fact,  that  sin  is 
exactly  as  God  sees  it  to  be,  and  that  God  sees  it  to 
be  exactly  what  it  is  and  where  it  is.  By  no  device 
can  it  ever  be  made  to  appear  to  Him  other  than 
it  is,  or  otherwhere  than  it  is.  Sin  existing,  by 
no  device  can  God's  relation  or  sentiment  towards 
it  be  changed,  one  iota,  for  one  moment.  The 
divine  thought  of  sin,  the  divine  feeling,  and  pre- 
cisely on  the  same  grounds,  the  divine  judgment 
concerning  sin  are  unchangeable.  For  ever  and 
ever,  God  declares  of  sin  wherever  it  exists,  and 
60  far  as  it  exists,  "it  is  the  abominable  thing 
which  I  hate."  For  ever  and  ever  God  ordains 
without  exception  and  without  fail,  "the  soul  that 
sinneth  shall  die."  This  is  the  simple  announce- 
ment of  an  eternal  fact. 

We  have  touched  one  of  the  deep  roots  of  human 
redemption.  It  is  because  God  hates  sin,  that  He 
has  determined  it  shall  be  and  must  be  put  down. 


loO  ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION. 

But  this  is  only  one  side  of  the  divine  nature. 
Love  of  man  is  as  profound  in  it,  as  hatred  of 
sin,  and  has  as  much  to  do  or  more,  with  the 
purpose  of  salvation.  The  life  and  the  death  of 
the  Incarnate,  Nazareth  and  Jerusalem,  Calvary 
and  the  cross,  were  the  token  of  God's  abhorrence 
of  sin,  but  they  were  yet  more  significantly  the 
symbol  of  love  to  man.  There  was  nothing, 
absolutely  nothing,  consistent  and  legitimate,  wliich 
God  was  not  willing  to  do  in  order  to  destroy  sin, 
but  it  was,  if  possible,  still  more  true  and  more 
impressively  evinced  to  be  true,  that  there  was 
nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  which  God  was  not 
willing  to  do  in  order  to  save  man.  The  Father 
of  souls,  in  spite  of  all  the  provocation  of  human 
sin,  was  not  transformed  into  a  mere  judge,  still 
less  into  a  merciless  avenger.  Instead  of  erecting 
His  throne  the  higher,  and  clothing  Himself  with 
terrors,  in  order  to  crush  a  pitiful  rebellion,  He 
humbled  Himself  to  a  depth  unfathomable,  entered 
into  a  new  and  closer  relationship  with  His  sinful 
creatures,  and  came  into  His  own  world  as  a 
sorrowing,  suffering,  and  loving  man.  Instead  of 
needing  to  be  propitiated,  and  appeased,  and  paci- 
fied, and  conciliated,  before  He  could  deal  with 
men,  we  behold  God  acting  in  pure,  unsought, 
and  unbought  grace.  "  God  so  loved  the  world," 
— of   Himself,  first    of    all, — *'  God    so  loved  the 


ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION.  151 

world,  that  He  gave  His  only-begotten  Son/'  In- 
stead of  being  first  moved,  or  prevailed  upon,  or 
somehow  enabled  to  love  the  world,  by  the  Incarna- 
tion and  the  death  of  Christ,  the  New  Testament 
teaches  us  that  it  was  His  pure  love  which  origin- 
ated that  Incarnation  and  that  death.  But  it  was 
not  love  alone.  Divine  love  of  man  was  combined 
with  divine  abhorrence  of  sin.  God  was  resolved 
on  saving  man,  but  He  must  also  put  an  end  to 
sin.  Only  through  the  destruction  of  sin  could 
salvation  be  achieved,  and  the  double  end  was 
gained  by  one  stupendous  means.  Sin  is  killed 
by  love,  it  could  be  killed  by  nothing  else.  Man 
is  saved  by  love,  he  could  be  saved  by  nothing 
else.  The  destruction  of  sin  is  the  salvation  of 
man;  the  two  are  one,  with  only  a  difference  in 
the  mode  of  statement.  It  was  proclaimed  from 
heaven  in  a  way  more  subduing  than  by  words, 
that  our  Father  pitied  and  loved  us,  though  He 
abhorred  our  sins,  that  He  had  no  pleasure  in  the 
death  of  His  children,  but  entreated  them  to  come 
back  to  His  feet  and  His  heart.  "  Turn  ye,  turn 
ye,  why  will  ye  die."  Men  would  not  seek  after 
God,  but  lo  I  God  sought  after  men.  Yery  God 
humbled  Himself  inconceivably,  put  Himself  before 
the  world,  His  purity.  His  rectitude.  His  wisdom, 
His  love.  Yery  God  pleaded  in  words  of  tender- 
ness and  pity  for  a  place  in  man's  heart,  expressed 


If52  ATONEMENT   AND    SATISFACTION. 

His  boundless  compassion  in  human  tears,  and 
blood,  and  death ;  did  anything,  everything,  if  only 
men  might  be  reconciled  to  Him.  And  they 
were  and  they  are.  The  cross,  symbol  of  dis- 
honour and  weakness,  is  the  mightiest  power  in 
the  universe.  The  hardened,  careless,  godless 
heart  is  touched  and  won  by  this  !  The  corrupt 
nature  feels  the  rush  of  a  holy,  divine  force, 
issuing  from  this,  and  the  rebellious  spirit,  the 
deep  proud  self-will  spurning  the  will  of  God,  is 
conquered  and  broken  by  this !  Through  all,  the 
Eedeeming  One  finds  a  satisfaction,  worthy  of  His 
nature,  a  pure  divine  contentment,  not  in  sacri- 
ficial blood  and  smoking  altars  and  expiring  victims, 
but  in  endless  good  created,  in  human  spirits  saved 
and  made  pure,  and  blessed  for  ever.  There  is 
one  soHtary  passage  of  Scripture,  in  wliich  the 
peculiar  term  of  scholastic  theology,  "  satisfaction," 
is  in  any  manner  connected  with  the  redemption 
of  man,  and  that  passage  shows  beyond  all  doubt, 
that  its  meaning  is  not  only  not  the  same,  but  the 
very  opposite  of  that,  which  long  usage  has  un- 
happily sanctioned,  "  He  shall  see  of  the  travail 
of  His  soul,  and  shall  be  satisfied^' — supremely 
contented  with  its  glorious  results. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

JUSTIFICATION  AND  IMPUTATION. 

Section  First. — Meaning  op  Terms. 

Section  Second.—Thuths  answering  to  the  Terms. 


SECTION   FIRST. 

Meaning  of  Terms : — Science  of  Theology  and  other  Sciences — 
Essentially  Different  Ground — Theological  Terms — Settled  by 
Scripture — Words  "Justify,"  &c. — Literal  Sense — Righten,  Set 
Right— Examples— Non-Natural  Sense — Spirit  of  Man,  Wrong 
— Needs  to  be  Set  Right — Proof  Passages— Justification — Only 
Thrice,  Used. 

SYSTEMATIC  theology,  to  wliich  alone  the  de- 
rO  fined  terms,  justification  and  imputation,  be- 
long, has  been  attended  with  some  evils  which 
largely  counterbalance  any  amount  of  good  it  has 
ever  efi'ected,  or  is  ever  likely  to  effect.  Spiritual 
truth,  bearing  as  it  does  chiefly  on  the  conscience 
and  the  moral  nature  of  man,  is  among  the  last 
things,  on  which  the  terms  and  the  laws  of  formal 
logic  can  be  tried  with  safety.  Even  the  idea 
of  constructing  a  system  or  science  of  spiritual 
truth  is  very  questionable.  A  science  is  not  simply 
a  body  of  ascertained  knowledge,  it  is  knowledge 
arranged,  accurately  classified,  and  above  all,  in- 
terpreted by  its  underlying  laws.  Astronomy,  phy- 
siology, chemistry,  botany,  each  professes  to  include 


156  JUSTIFICATION   AND    IMPUTATION. 

all  the  known  phenomena  which  belong  to  its  sphere, 
to  distribute  these  into  their  proper  classes,  and  to 
educe  the  fundamental  laws,  which  account  for, 
and  interpret  them.  No  one  of  the  sciences  is 
absolutely  complete.  In  each,  new  facts,  and  new 
orders  of  facts,  and  new  governing  laws,  await  dis- 
covery, in  the  progress  of  time.  But  each,  at  the 
present  stage  of  observation,  is  exhaustive,  and  leaves 
behind,  in  its  course,  no  hopeless  exceptions,'  still 
less  contradictions ;  and  having  advanced  step  by 
step  with  entire  success,  up  to  the  present  limit 
of  discovery,  it  undertakes,  by  patient  research,  to 
explain  whatever  shall  yet  arise,  within  the  sphere 
which  it  has  assumed. 

The  sphere  of  theology  from  its  very  nature  is 
incapable  of  being  exhaustively  explored,  and  hence 
every  theological  system  leaves,  perhaps  at  its  very 
centre,  many  unfilled  blanks  and  gaps,  and  is  forced 
to  acknowledge  phenomena  which  baffle  all  human 
methods  of  interpretation,  which  are,  in  fact,  to 
human  thought,  irreconcilable,  although  not  really 
contradictory.  The  rivalry  among  the  systems  has 
ever  been  only  this,  which  should  show  the  largest 
area  of  established  truth,  with  the  fewest  un- 
explained difficulties  and  contradictions.  Theology 
starts  from  primitive  truths,  which  are  not  the 
result  of  scientific  observation,  and  are  not  capable, 
except  in  a  limited  degree,  of  scientific  treatment, 


JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION.  157 

truths  which  are  strictly  transcendental,  having  their 
ground  in  pure  intuition,  or  in  revelation,  or  in 
both.  And  these  truths,  instead  of  occupying  a 
region  apart  by  themselves,  touch  at  a  thousand  vital 
points,  the  whole  range  of  spiritual  thought,  and 
are  interfused  and  blended  with  every  question 
within  that  range.  It  is  quite  certain  that  there 
must  be  a  real,  underlying  harmony  of  spiritual 
truth,  as  there  undoubtedly  is  of  scientific  truth, 
but  the  ground  of  this  harmony  in  the  spiritual 
region  has  never  yet  been  discovered.  Something 
like  a  philosophy  of  theology,  an  approximative  and 
tentative  philosophy  may  be  possible,  and  we  may 
be  able  to  lay  hold  of  some  leading  principles  which 
point  in  the  direction  of  the  ultimate  harmony,  and 
in  which  we  can  rest  with  entire  confidence.  But  a 
science  or  system  of  theology  must  be  for  ever 
impossible  in  this  twilight  of  our  being;  certainly 
all  the  efforts  to  construct  such  a  science,  heretofore, 
have  proved  on  many  sides  discouraging  and  disas- 
trous. 

There  is  another  important  distinction.  The 
exact  sciences  have  each  a  terminology  of  its  own. 
They  could  not  be  constructed,  and  could  not  serve 
the  ends  of  their  construction,  in  the  absence  of  this 
indispensable  auxiliary.  Technical  terms  in  science 
answer  the  purpose  of  the  ordinal  numbers  in  arith- 
metic, or  of  the  arbitrary  signs  in  algebraic  notation. 


158  JUSTIFICATION   AND    IMPUTATION. 

The  aritlimetician  and  the  algebraist  affix  a  precise 
value  to  each  figure  or  sign,  and  are  able  to  conduct 
their  calculations  with  perfect  accuracy  and  facility. 
In  like  manner,  and  with  equal  authority,  the  man 
of  science  defines,  for  his  own  purposes,  the  terms  he 
employs,  and  arranges  under  each  the  facts,  or  the 
classes  of  facts,  which  properly  belong  to  it.  And 
this  is  not  simply  a  convenience,  it  is  a  necessity,  for 
holding  securely  what  he  has  gained,  and  for  all 
valid  progress  in  his  department  of  the  great  field  of 
inquiry.  lie  has  a  right  to  define  his  terms.  The 
less  arbitrary  they  are,  and  the  more  naturally  they 
suggest  their  meaning,  the  better ;  but  he  has  a 
right  to  define  his  terms,  to  fix  the  precise  sense  in 
which  he  employs  them,  and  to  determine  the  exact 
area  which  they  are  to  cover.  Each  term  shall  stand 
for  a  certain  range  of  facts,  and  shall  include  them 
all,  without  exception,  but  no  others.  As  new  facts 
come  to  light,  either  they  can  be  ranged  under  one 
or  other  of  the  existing  terms,  or  a  new  term  is 
found  which  shall  denote  them  and  all  of  their  order. 
It  is  easy  to  see  that,  quite  legitimately,  the  scientific 
sense  of  a  word  shall  be  perfectly  different  from  its 
popular  general  sense,  and  on  the  same  ground  that 
the  meaning  of  a  word  in  one  science  shall  be  per- 
fectly different  from  itg  meaning  in  another  science. 
All  this  s  understood  and  admitted,  as  a  necessity 
and  a  manifest  benefit. 


JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION.  159 

It  is  imagined  that  theology  ought  not  to  be 
denied  an  amount  of  licence,  which  in  the  case  of 
science  is  found  to  be  not  only  harmless,  but  useful, 
and  even  indispensable.  Theology  must  need  its 
technical  terms  as  much  as  science,  and  on  what 
ground,  it  is  asked,  can  it  be  judged  less  entitled  to 
create  and  employ  them !  But  this  question  over- 
looks a  very  essential  fact  which  distinguishes  theo- 
logy, and  separates  it  toto  coelo  from  every  human 
science.  Theologians  are  expressly  saved  the  neces- 
sity, and  peremptorily  prohibited  the  power  or  the 
right,  of  creating  terms,  or  of  affixing  to  any  term 
a  technical,  special  meaning  of  their  own.  An 
authority  higher  than  theirs,  a  divine  authority,  as 
they  fully  admit,  has  beforehand  put  forth  in  human 
language, — in  language  meant  to  be  clear  to  the 
ordinary  apprehension  of  common  men, — every  lead- 
ing idea  within  the  sphere  of  theology.  What  sense 
of  a  particular  word,  or  form  of  words,  shall  best  fit 
in  with  a  certain  system,  or  shall  best  stand  the  tear 
and  wear  of  logical  controversy,  is  not  the  question 
at  all,  although  too  manifestly  this  has  often  been 
uppermost  with  conflicting  schools  and  creeds.  But 
the  real  and  sole  question  in  every  instance  is  simply 
this.  What  is  the  natural  proper  meaning  of  such 
word  or  foim  of  words,  as  employed  in  the  Holy 
Scriptures  ?  The  point  which  we  have  to  discuss  in 
the  present  chapter  is  one  which  belongs  wholly  to 


160  JUSTIFICATION  AND   IMPUTATION. 

biblical  interpretation.  In  regard  to  the  terms, 
"justify"  and  "justification,"  as  with  reference  to  any 
other  of  the  technical  words  which  have  been  adopted 
by  artificial  theology,  we  have  simply  to  ask,  what 
saith  the  Scripture  ?  Theologians  not  only  have  no 
right  to  impose  a  meaning  of  their  own,  but  they 
are  guilty  of  a  grave  offence  if  they  attempt  either 
to  extend  or  to  contract  the  natural  sense.  Acting 
on  this  conviction,  we  shall  quote  all  the  passages, 
without  exception,  of  the  Old  and  ^ew  Testa- 
ments, in  which  the  words  "justify"  or  "justifica- 
tion "  occur,  and  in  which  (it  is  important  to  bear  in 
mind)  these  English  terms  are  employed  to  translate 
some  part  or  derivative  of  the  Hebrew  TsdddJc,  or 
some  part  or  derivative  of  the  Greek  AcKaioay. 

The  word  used  by  our  translators,  "justify,"  has 
a  very  unambiguous  sense.  According  to  ordinary, 
or  rather  universal,  usage,  it  means  to  vindicate,  to 
clear,  to  right,  or  righten,  or  set  right  a  person  or  a 
transaction  ;  to  vindicate,  and  nothing  else,  with  only 
such  modifications  as  are  readily  and  naturally  in- 
cluded in  this  term.i     You  justify  or  vindicate  an 

*  I  have  no  right  to  identify  the  author  of  the  valuable  treatise 
on  Christian  Faith  with  any  of  the  conclusions  in  this  volume.  But 
in  a  point  of  criticism,  and  in  the  mode  of  interpreting  the  words 
"justify,"  &c.,  a  mode  by  which,  for  many  years  past,  I  had  been 
helped  in  understanding  the  New  Testament,  it  was  to  me  a  singular 
gratification  to  be  confirmed  by  so  well  known  and  sound  a  scholar. 
—See  "  Christian  Faith,"  by  Prof.  Godwin,  p.  156.     London :  1862. 


JUSTIFICATION  AND   IMPUTATION.  161 

action  when  you  set  it  right,  when  you  show  that  its 
grounds  were  good,  when  you  put  it  in  its  true  light, 
clear  of  the  wrong  interpretations  which  had  been 
given  of  it.  You  justify  or  vindicate  an  accused 
person,  a  man  who  is  charged  with  wrong  done,  or 
with  duty  neglected,  when  you  show  that  he  is  blamed 
falsely,  when  you  right  or  righten  him,  when  you  set 
him  right  with  his  fellow-men  and  before  the  law  of 
his  country.  There  is  nothing  hereby  reached  as  to 
his  general  character,  nothing,  save  in  the  particular 
instance.  He  may  be  thoroughly  wrong  in  other  re- 
spects, but,  in  this  one  respect,  you  are  able  to  right 
him,  to  justify,  vindicate,  clear  liim.  For  the  man 
who  has  been  really  wrong,  who  has  acted  wrongfully 
by  his  neighbour,  and  harboured  wrong  feelings 
against  him,  there  can  be  no  vindication,  except  in 
an  entire  change  of  mind  and  of  conduct.  You  jus- 
tify him,  only  when  you  set  him  really  right,  when 
you  induce  him  to  abandon  and  condemn  the  wrong, 
and  to  choose  and  cleave  to  the  right. 

It  deserves  to  be  specially  remarked,  that  the  dis- 
puted term  is  employed  by  our  divine  Lord  only  fom: 
times,  but  not  once  in  the  scholastic  sense.  The 
apostle  James  thrice  introduces  it,  but  only  in  its 
ordinary  meaning.  The  apostle  Paul  makes  frequent 
use  of  this  word,  and  it  is  on  his  use  of  it,  that  theo- 
logians found  the  peculiar  sense  which  they  have 
attached  to  it. 


162  JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION. 

In  the  following  passages  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  the  common  English  sense  of  the  verb, 
to  justify,  either  must  be  adopted,  or  may  most 
naturally,  and  without  any  difficulty  or  straining,  be 
shown  to  give  tlie  true  meaning,  viz. : — 

"The  innocent  and  the  righteous  slay  thou  not: 
for  I  will  not  justify  the  wicked,"  i — that  is,  vindicate, 
clear,  right  them. 

"  The  judges  shall  justify  the  righteous,  and 
condemn  the  wicked,"  2 — that  is,  vindicate,  clear, 
right  them. 

"  Condemning  the  wicked,  and  justifying  the 
righteous,"  2 — vindicating,  clearing,  showing  him  to 
be  right,  righting  him. 

"  Mine  own  mouth  would  condemn  me,  if  I  justify 
myself,"^ — that  is,  vindicate,  clear,  hold  myself  to  be 
right  when  I  am  not. 

"  Should  a  man  full  of  talk  be  justified  ?"^ — that 
is,  vindicated,  cleared,  held  to  be  right,  righted. 

"  I  know  that  I  shall  be  justified,"  ^ — vindicated, 
•cleared,  righted  at  last. 

"  How  then  can  man  be  justified  with  God,  or  be 
clean? "7 — that  is,  vindicated,  cleared  of  blame,  held 
to  be  right,  righted. 

"  God    forbid    that    I    should  justify    you,"  8 — 

1  Exod.  xxiii.  7.  ^  Deut.  xxv.  1.  ^  1  Kings  viii.  32. 

-*  Job  ix.  20.  '^  Job  xi.  2.  «  Job  xiii.  18. 

^  Job  xxv.  4.  ^  Job  xxvii.  5. 


JUSTIFICATION   AND    IMPUTATION.  163 

that  is,  vindicate,  clear,  right  you,  when  you  are 
wrong. 

"  Because  he  justified  himself  rather  than  God,''l 
— that  is,  vindicated,  cleared,  held  himself  to  be  right, 
rather  than  God. 

"  Speak,  for  I  desire  to  justify  thee,"2 — that  is, 
vindicate,  clear,  right  thee,  if  thou  art  really  right. 

"  In  thy  sight  shall  no  man  living  be  justified," 3 — 
that  is,  vindicated,  cleared  of  blame,  held  to  be  right, 
righted. 

"  He  that  justifieth  the  wicked  .  .  .  (is)  an  abo- 
mination to  the  Lord,"  4 — that  is,  vindicates,  clears, 
rights  them  when  they  are  wrong. 

"  Who  justify  the  wicked  for  reward,"^ — ^that  is, 
vindicate,  clear,  make  them  out  to  be  right,  though 
they  know  them  to  be  wrong. 

"  Bring  forth  their  witnesses,  that  they  may  be  jus- 
tified,''^— that  is,  vindicated,  cleared,  righted. 

"  Declare  thou  that  thou  mayest  be  justified," 7 — 
that  is,  vindicated,  cleared,  righted,  have  justice  done 
thee. 

"  In  (or  by)  the  Lord  shall  all  the  seed  of  Israel  be 
justified,  and  shall  glory," 8 — that  is,  justified  in  put- 
ting their  trust  in  Him,  vindicated,  righted,  seen  to 
be  right,  and  to  have  real  cause  for  glorying. 

1  Job  xxxii.  2.  2  Job  xxxiii.  32.  ^  Ps.  cxliii.  2. 

'*  Prov.  xvii.  15.         ^  jg^  y  23.  «  Isa.  xliii.  9. 

^  Isa.  xliii.  26.  8  j^^^  ^Iv.  25. 


164  JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION. 

"  He  is  near  that  justifieth  me  ;  who  will  contend 
with  me?"i — that  is,  righteth  me,  and  will  see  jus- 
tice done. 

"  By  his  knowledge  shall  my  righteous  servant 
justify  many  ;  for  he  shall  bear  their  iniquities,"  ^ — 
that  is,  vindicate,  clear,  right  them,  and  set  them  right. 

"  Backsliding  Israel  hath  justified  herself,"^ — that 
is,  vindicated,  cleared,  made  herself  out  right,  v^^ 
she  was  wrong. 

"  Thou  hast  justified  thy  sisters,  by  all  thine 
abominations,"^ — that  is,  vindicated  them  in  all  their 
abominations,  by  thine,  as  if  they  were  right. 

"  Then  shall  the  sanctuary  be  cleansed,''^  (Hebrew, 
justified,) — that  is,  purged  from  the  wrong  done 
it,  be  righted  and  made  clean. 

These  are  the  whole  of  the  passages  of  the  Old 
Testament,  in  which  the  word  "justify''  occurs. 
They  are  not  selected,  but  taken  exactly  as  they 
lie  in  the  sacred  books.  With  the  exception  of 
not  more  than  one  solitary  instance,  their  natural, 
obvious  signification  does  not  admit  of  a  ques- 
tion. The  following  passages  are  selected  from  the 
New  Testament,  and  they  are  selected  from  others 
which  shall  be  produced  in  due  time,  because  in 
them  the  common  meaning  of  the  word  "  to  justify" 
is  the  most  apposite,  as  it  is  the  most  natural. 

1  Isa.  1.  8.  2  isa.  Hii.  n.  3  j^j.^  ^^  n^ 

*  Ezek.  xvi.  51.  ^  Dan.  viii.  14. 


JUSTIFICATION   AND    IMPUTATION.  165 


"  Wisdom  is  justified  in  her  cliildren/i — that 
is,  vindicated,  seen  to  be  what  she  is,  righted  in 
the  eyes  of  men. 

"  By  thy  words  thou  shalt  be  justified,''2 — that 
is,  thy  words  are  a  sign  of  what  is  in  thee, 
and  will  vindicate,  clear,  right  thee,  if  thou  art 
right. 

"  The  publicans  justified  God,"^ — that  is,  vindi- 
cated God  in  what  was  done,  did  Him  justice  in 
their  thoughts,  cleared,  righted  Him. 

"  He  willing  to  justify  himself ,"4 — that  is,  to 
vindicate,  clear,  right  himself. 

"Ye  justify  yourselves  before  men,"^ — that  is, 
vindicate,  clear  yourselves,  make  yom'selves  out  to 
be  right. 

"  This  man  went  down  to  his  house,  justified 
rather  than  the  other ,"6 — that  is,  vindicated  in  what 
he  had  done,  cleared,  righted,  as  an  honest,  sincere, 
penitent  man  before  God. 

"  Not  the  hearers  of  the  law  ....  but  the  doers 
of  the  law  are  justified, "7 — that  is,  vindicated,  cleared, 
righted,  seen  to  be  sincere  and  true. 

"  That  thou  might  est  be  justified  in  thy  say- 
ings,"^— that  is,  vindicated,  cleared,  righted  in  the 
eyes  of  men,  as  uttering  only  truth. 

i  Matt.  xi.  19.  2  jyiatt.  xii.  37.  3  Luke  vii.  29. 

*  Luke  X.  29.  ^  Luke  xvi.  15.  ^  Luke  xviii.  14. 

^  Kom.  ii.  13.  ^  Eom.  iii.  4. 


1G6  JUSTIFICATION   AND    IMPUTATION. 

"  I  know  nothing  by  mj^self,  yet  am  I  not  here- 
by justified /'i — that  is,  vindicated,  cleared,  righted, 
proved  to  be  right. 

"  God  manifest  in  the  flesh,  justified  in  (or  by) 
the  Spirit ,''2_ that  is,  vindicated,  cleared,  righted, 
proved  to  be  divine.    . 

"  Was  not  Abraham  justified  by  works,  when  he 
offered  Isaac,  his  son,  on  the  altar  ?"3 — that  is,  vindi- 
cated, cleared,  righted ;  his  professed  obedience 
was  proved  to  be  real. 

"  By  works  a  man  is  justified,  and  not  by  faith 
only,''4 — that  is,  vindicated,  cleared,  righted,  by  the 
substantial  proof  of  sincerity. 

"  Was  not  Kahab  the  harlot  justified  by  works  ?''^ 
— that  is,  vindicated,  cleared,  righted,  seen  to  be 
true  to  her  promise. 

Throughout  these  passages  of  the  New  Testament, 
as  in  the  previous  quotations  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, the  idea  is  that  of  vindicating,  or  more 
generally  of  righting,  or  rightening.  You  justify 
or  vindicate,  when  you  show  the  rights  of  a  case, 
when  you  set  it  right  or  righten  it.  But  there 
is  another,  a  scholastic  and  conventional,  meaning 
of  the  word,  which  demands  a  careful  examination. 

Theological  justification  is  thus  defined  by  the 
Westminster  Assembly  of  Divines,  in  their  Shorter 

1  1  Cor.  iv.  4.  2  1  Tim.  iii.  16.  »  j^g.  ii.  21. 

*  Jas.  ii.  24.  ^  Jas.  ii.  25. 


JUSTIFICATION   AND    IMPUTATION.  167 

Catechism — "  An  act  of  God's  free  grace,  wherein 
He  pardoneth  all  our  sins  and  accepteth  us,  as 
righteous  in  His  sight,  only  for  the  righteousness 
of  Christ,  imputed  to  us  and  received  by  faith 
alone."  We  are  taught  to  think  of  a  court  of 
justice,  God  presiding  as  the  judge,  man  arraigned 
as  a  criminal,  and  deserving  to  suffer  the  penalty 
jof  the  broken  law,  namely  death,  eternal  death. 
Man  has  no  defence  to  offer,  no  plea  of  any  kind  to 
put  forward.  But  Christ  Jesus,  the  incarnate 
Saviour  interposes,  as  a  Mediator  between  God 
and  man,  declares  that  he  has  siiffered  in  the 
room  and  stead  of  man,  and  therefore  claims  that 
man  should  be  acquitted ;  declares  besides,  that  in 
his  life  and  by  his  death,  he  has  wrought  out, 
in  man's  name,  a  perfect  obedience,  a  perfect  right- 
eousness, which  he  needed  not  on  his  own  account, 
and  therefore  claims  that  this  may  be  imputed  to 
man,  even  as  man's  sin  was  imputed  to  him,  and 
that  man  should  on  this  ground  not  only  stand 
acquitted  and  pardoned,  but  should  be  accepted  as 
perfectly  and  spotlessly  righteous.  When  a  human 
being,  by  true  faith  accepts  Christ  as  the  Mediator, 
trusts  in  his  death  for  pardon,  and  in  his  right- 
eousness for  acceptance,  then  the  Great  Judge  pro- 
nounces a  sentence  of  acquittal  and  of  irreversible 
approval. 

It  must  be  obvious  at  a  glance,  how  perfectly  dif- 


168  JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION. 

ferent  all  this  is,  from  tlie  simple  meaning  of  the 
word  ''justify"  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  so  far  as  we 
have  yet  examined.  It  can  scarcely  fail  to  strike 
impartial  observers,  that  this  includes  so  much  more 
than  the  word  is  ordinarily  understood  to  contain, 
and  is  altogether  so  widely  different,  that  a  common 
Enghsh  reader  of  the  Bible,  however  well  instructed 
on  general  subjects,  could  never  of  himself  form  a 
conception  of  it.  Those  who  have  been  trained 
from  infancy  in  the  theological  system,  not  only  may 
easily  read  the  New  Testament  in  accordance  with 
it,  but  may  find  it  nearly  impossible,  without  long 
and  hard  effort,  to  accept  any  other  interpretation. 
This  is  the  too  frequent  effect  of  those  arbitrary, 
technical  definitions  of  Scripture  terms  which  have 
been  so  largely  introduced  into  a  region  where,  of 
all  others,  it  is  vitally  important  that  the  mind 
should  be  preserved  perfectly  unbiassed.  But  on 
the  other  hand,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  multitudes  of 
educated  persons,  not  trained  in  the  theological 
system,  are  perfectly  unable  to  understand  the 
words  "justify"  and  "justification,"  as  used  by  theo- 
logians, and  for  the  sole,  sufficient  reason,  that  the 
conventional  is  entirely  different  from  the  natural 
meaning.  If  it  be  asked  by  what  authority  these 
distinct  ideas — forgiveness  of  sins  and  acceptance 
before  God  as  righteous,  and  that  on  the  ground  of 
a  mysterious  imputation  of  sin  to  the  holy,  and  of 


JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION.  169 

holiness  to  the  sinful  —  have  been  imported  into 
what  we  have  shown  to  be  the  ordinary  meaning 
of  a  Hebrew,  Greek,  and  English  word ;  if  it  be 
asked  by  what  authority  a  common  term  has  been 
weighted  with  such  important  additions, — I  know  of 
none  which  does  not  rest  ultimately  for  its  support 
on  the  exigencies  of  the  theological  system.  The 
system  needs  forensic  imagery  and  language — needs 
judicial  forms  of  procedure,  in  order  to  its  exact- 
ness and  logical  completeness.  But  it  seems  par- 
donable to  question,  whether  this  can  be  adopted 
as  a  legitimate  and  safe  canon  of  biblical  interpre- 
tation. 

Eeturning  to  more  general  considerations,  it  de- 
serves to  be  noted,  that  the  root  of  that  class  of 
English  words  with  which  the  verb  "justify"  stands 
connected,  is  right.  We  have  the  adjective  and  the 
noun,  right ;  the  adjective,  righteous ;  and  the  noun, 
righteousness,  which,  in  its  more  general  form, 
rightness,  would  be  an  exacter  translation.  Eight, 
righteous,  righteousness,  or  rightness, — but  strangely 
the  verb  is  "justify,"  as  if  it  were  derived  from 
another  root.  This  departure  in  form  from  the 
allied  terms  is,  at  least,  not  happy,  and  is  almost 
certain  to  create  a  misapprehension  in  the  mind  of 
the  mere  English  reader.  At  all  events,  it  hides 
from  him  a  fact  which  might  afford  some  help  in 
making  out  the  meaning  of  the  sacred  text.     No 


170  JUSTIFICATION  AND  IMPUTATION. 

violence  is  done,  but,  on  the  contrary,  a  truer  ap- 
preciation of  the  original  is  likely  to  be  created, 
if  for  "justify"  we  substitute  a  term  cognate  to  the 
words  derived  from  the  same  root.  Thus, — right, 
righteous,  righteousness,  or  rightness ;  and  to  righten, 
or  rectify,  or  set  right. 

It  will  be  easy  to  show  how  this  slight  change 
of  terms  bears  with  beautiful  simplicity  and  force 
on  the  actual,  spiritual  condition  of  the  world. 
At  the  root  of  the  whole  Bible,  underneath  all 
the  teachings  of  the  New  Testament,  there  lies 
this  fundamental  idea,  that  the  spirit  of  man  in 
relation  to  God  is  altogether  wrong.  It  has  fallen 
from  God,  has  turned  away  and  moves  in  a  direc- 
tion quite  away  from  Him,  and  through  all  has 
done,  and  is  doing  itself,  as  well  as  God,  cruel 
wrong.  What  it  most  of  all  and  first  of  all  needs 
is  to  be  righted  or  rectified,  to  be  turned  back 
towards  Him  from  whom  it  has  wickedly  revolted. 
Instead  of  indifference,  forgetfulness,  resistance,  and 
enmity,  what  it  needs  is  an  earnest,  humble,  yearn- 
ing after  God,  the  waking  up  within  it  of  lowly, 
childlike  trust.  "  I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  Father." 
Nor  let  it  be  forgotten  that  it  is  on  this  issue,  on 
the  production  of  this  inward  change,  that  all  the 
influences  of  God's  Providence,  God's  Spirit,  and 
God's  Word,  are  brought  to  bear.  All  the  divine 
manifestations  in  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  manifesta- 


JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION.  171 

tions  of  divine  purity  and  wisdom,  divine  tender- 
ness, and  patience,  and  beauty,  and  sweetness,  and 
grace,  all  the  mysteries  of  Incarnation,  all  the 
forces  of  God's  self-sacrificing  mercy,  incarnate, 
crucified  mercy,  are  directed  to  one  grand  end, 
namely  this,  that  man's  soul  be  rectified,  righted, 
turned  back  from  its  wrong  position,  and  that 
humbled  and  penitent  it  may  seek  God,  and  with 
timid  trembling  faith  may  begin  to  trust  Him. 
This  first  step — or  look — Godward,  this  incipient 
but  genuine  movement  of  the  child-spirit,  is  justi- 
fication, rectification,  the  righting,  Tightening,  set- 
ting right  of  the  soul,  which  before  was  wholly 
wrong.  Verily  the  first  is  not  the  last  step ;  a 
hard  struggle  with  evil  and  with  self  is  before  the 
lightened  spirit,  an  anxious  process  of  inward 
purification,  a  life-long  work  of  sanctification — to 
use  the  conventional  phrase.  But  this  righting 
or  rectifying  is  first,  before  anything  real  can  be 
effected.  In  order  to  be  sanctified,  we  must  first 
be  justified,  righted  by  faith,  turned  towards  God 
in  penitence  and  in  trust.  "It  is  God  that  justi- 
fieth,"  an  apostle  declares,  that  righteth,  righteneth, 
setteth  right  the  spirit  of  man,  that  turneth  it 
back  towards  Himself.  And  His  method  of  right- 
ing or  justifying  is  by  faith,  by  the  sweet  awaken- 
ing in  the  soul  of  simple  trust,  trust  in  the  revealed 
mercy  of  God  in  Christ.     This   gentle,  humbled, 


172  JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION. 

penitent,  childlike  spirit,  at  once  rightens  the 
erring  soul,  and  changes  its  relation  to  its  Father, 
sets  it  towards  Him,  turns  it  right  round,  and 
brings  it  into  the  attitude  of  a  son,  a  humble, 
subdued,  confiding  son. 

Whether  this  sense  of  righting  or  setting  right, 
which  we  have  shown  belongs  strictly  to  the  literal 
signification  of  the  disputed  word,  and  is  found 
fitting  in  all  other  cases,  be  applicable  in  the  pas- 
sages now  to  be  quoted,  must  be  left,  to  individual 
judgment  to  decide. 

**  All  that  believe  are  justified  " — cleared,  set  right 
— "  from  all  things,  from  which  ye  could  not  be  jus- 
tified " — cleared,  set  right — "  by  the  law  of  Moses."  i 

"  Being  justified  " — righted,  set  right — "  freely 
by  His  grace.  "2 

"  We  conclude  that  a  man  is  justified  " — righted 
—"by  faith,"  &c. 3 

*'  It  is  one  God  who  shall  justify " — righten — 
"  the  circumcision  by  faith,"  &c.4 

*' If  Abraham  were  justified "  —  righted  —  "by 
works,  he  hath  whereof  to  boast."^ 

"  To  him  that  believeth  on  Him  that  justifieth'' 
— ^righteneth — "the  ungodly." ^ 

"  Being  justified " — Tightened  —  "by  faith,  we 
have  peace  with  God."  7 

^  Acts  xiii.  39.      ^  Rom.  iii.  24.      ^  Rom^  ^[i  28.      •*  Rom.  iiL  30, 
*  Rom.  iv.  2.         ^  Rom.  iv.  5,        ^  Rom.  v.  1. 


JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION.  173 

"  Much  more,  being  justified  " — lightened — "  by 
his  blood,"  &c.  1 

"Whom  He  justified" — lightened — "them  He 
also  glorified/'  2 

"  Ye  are  justified  " — righted — "  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord  Jesus."  ^ 

"A  man  is  not  justified" — righted — "by  the 
works  of  the  law  .  .  .  even  we  have  believed  in 
Jesus  Christ,  that  we  might  be  justified '' — righted 
— "  by  the  faith  of  Christ  and  not  by  the  works 
of  the  law."  4 

"  The  Scripture  foreseeing  that  God  would 
justify '' — righten — "  the  heathen  by  faith."  ^ 

"  No  man  is  justified "  —  righted  —  "by  the 
law."  6 

"  That  we  might  be  justified  " — righted — "  by 
faith  in  Christ."  ^ 

"  Whosoever  of  you  is  justified  " — righted — "  by 
the  law  ;  ye  are  fallen  from  grace."  8 

These,  with  one  addition  to  be  introduced  here- 
after, are  the  whole  of  the  instances,  furnished  by 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  without  a  single 
exception,  so  far  as  I  know,  in  which  the  English 
word  "justify,"  as  the  translation  of  the  Hebrew 
Tsadak,  or  of  the  Greek  JcKaloco,  is  found  in  the 

1  Rom.  V.  9.  2  ijojQ^  yiii^  3Q_  3  i  Cor.  vi.  11. 

*  Gal.  ii.  16.  5  Qai.  jii.  g.  6  Qal.  iu.  11. 

7  Gal.  iii.  24.  8  Gal.  v.  4. 


174  JUSTIFICATION    AND   IMPUTATION. 

Sacred  Scriptures.  The  conclusion  to  which  they 
conduct  seems  indubitable. 

The  noun  "justification"  does  not  require  so  ex- 
tended a  criticism  as  its  cognate  verb.  There  are 
only  three  passages  in  the  whole  Bible,  and  these 
in  the  single  Epistle  to  the  Komans,  a  single  verse 
of  one  chapter,  and  two  verses  of  the  following 
chapter,  in  which  this  favourite  term  of  scholastic 
theology  occurs ;  and  in  these  it  would  demand  no 
common  ingenuity  to  discover  a  foundation  for  the 
extensive  structure  which  has  been  reared  upon 
them.  Two  distinct  words  are  used  by  the  apostle 
Paul,  both  translated  in  our  version  "  justification." 
These  are  ^t/ca/wo-t?  and  AiKatco/jLa.  The  analogy 
of  the  language  might  have  led  us  to  judge  that 
AiKai(0(TL<i  meant  the  act,  the  mode,  or  the  power 
of  rightening,  and  AiKalcoixa  the  thing  righted,  or 
a  sentence,  or  ordinance,  righting  something.  But 
the  apostle  employs  the  two  words,  apparently 
without  distinction,  as  if  they  were  quite  inter- 
changeable. 

"  He  was  delivered  for  our  offences,  raised  again, 
ha  rrjv  hKamcnv  rjfjbcov,  for  the  sake  of,  on  account  of, 
in  order  to,  our  justification — our  being  set  rigJit."  l 

"  The  free  gift,  'xapiaiJLa,  is  of  many  offences,  eU 
BLKalco/jia,  unto,  in  order  to,  justification,  m  order  to 
our  being  set  right" 2 

1  Rom.  iv.  25.  *  Rom.  v.  16. 


JUSTIFICATION   AND    IMPUTATION.  175 

"  Even  so,  Be  evb<;  BLKaLQ)jiiaTo<;,  by  the  righteous- 
ness of  one/'i — a  translation  which  is  flagrantly 
inaccurate,  the  words  admitting  of  no  rendering 
but  some  such  as  this:  By  one  justification,  or  by 
one  rectifying  ordinance,  the  grace  came  upon  all 
men,  et?  htKalwaiv  fw%,  in  order  to  justification  oi 
life,  in  order  to  a  vital  riglitening,  or  a  Tightening 
of  life. 

1  Rom.  V.  18. 


SECTIOIT  SECOND. 

Truths  Answering  to  Terms  of  Scripture : — Righteousness  Right- 
ness — State  of  Right-en-ed-ness — Rightening-ness — The  Power, 
Act,  Mode  of  Rightening — Imputation — Rightness  Imputed 
because  Real — Fact  Recognised — Thing  Reckoned,  What  it  is, 
Never,  what  it  is  not — Imputation  Inevitable — Instinctive — 
Figures  of  Speech — Judicial  Imputation,  a  Crime. 

IN  close,  indeed,  essential  connexion  with  tlie 
point  we  have  been  discussing,  there  is  an- 
other term  constantly  occurring  in  the  Scriptures, 
the  exact  meaning  of  which  it  is  of  the  highest 
importance  to  ascertain — ^the  term  "righteousness," 
AiKaiocrvvTj,  The  more  general  word  "  rightness ''  is 
unquestionably  as  literal  a  translation  as  right- 
eousness, and  it  is  more  comprehensive,  and  covers 
a  wide  area,  which  cannot  be  included  in  the 
latter  term.  Kighteousness,  according  to  ordinary 
usage,  is  equivalent  to  holiness,  piety,  virtue, 
moral  and  spiritual  goodness.  Very  frequently  in 
Scripture  this  is  the  proper  and  entire  sense  of 
the  word.  Holiness  is  rightness,  rightness  in  the 
highest   sense  of    all,  moral  rightness,   true  right- 


JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION.  177 

ness  of  soul.  But  a  thing  may  be  perfectly 
right  without  being  holy  at  all.  A  thing  is 
right,  which  is  fitting  in  the  circumstances  and 
altogether  worthy  of  them,  which  is  proper  to  be 
done,  which  is  consistent  and  wise.  That  which 
is  holy  is  always  right,  but  that  which  is  right 
may  have  nothing  in  it,  of  which  the  quality  holy 
can  be  predicated.  Kightness  is  the  more  accurate 
translation  of  ScKaioawrj,  because  it  includes  every 
meaning  of  which  the  word  is  susceptible,  which 
righteousness  does  not.  The  narrower,  special  sense 
of  righteousness,  as  ordinarily  understood,  is  quite 
taken  in  by  the  more  general  word,  but  the  more 
general  sense  is  excluded  by  the  narrower  translation. 
1  The  inward  state  of  those  who  have  been 
tightened,  set  right,  by  faith,  is  fitly  denoted  by 
the  word  hoKaiocrvvrj ,  it  is  a  state  of  rightness  in 
relation  to  God.  Perhaps  with  greater  precision, 
^nd  in  harmony  with  the  forms  of  the  English 
tongue,  it  might  be  called  rightenedness,  a  state 
of  rightenedness. 

2.  As  this  inward  state  is  that  which  God  seeks 
to  originate  in  men,  and  does  originate  in  fact,  it 
is  fitly  distinguished  as  God's  rightness  or  right- 
enedness, not  man's,  His  kind  of  rightenedness,  what 
He  regards  and  produces  as  real  rightenedness. 

3.  God's  power  and  His  method  of  rightening 
men   are   also    denoted   by   the   term    "  rightness," 

M 


178  JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION. 

hiKaioavvrj  rod  Oeov.  With  greater  precision  to 
English  ears,  and  more  in  accordance  with  English 
idioms,  it  might  be  translated,  Grod's  rightening- 
ness,  including  both  His  power  and  His  way  of 
rightening  or  setting  right.  At  the  same  time, 
while  the  distinctions  thus  announced  are  far  from 
being  unimportant,  and  deserve  to  be  carried  along 
with  us,  the  wide  term,  "  Tightness,"  adapts  itself 
without  much  difficulty  to  these  different  shades 
of  meaning,  and  it  might  be  perplexing  to  introduce 
other  terms. 

The  Tightness  of  God — either  that  inward  state  in 
relation  to  Himself,  which  He  originates  in  men,  or 
His  power  or  His  method  of  rightening  them  through 
faith,  is  in  the  New  Testament  constantly  contrasted 
with  law — Tightness,  or  man's  own  Tightness,  man's 
kind  of  Tightness,  and  his  way  of  righting  himself. 
The  prevailing  Jewish  idea  was  fulfilled  in  cere- 
monial obedience.  Instead  of  the  conviction  that 
their  spiritual  relation  to  God  was  wrong,  and  re- 
quired first  of  all  to  be  set  right,  their  highest  aspi- 
ration was  ritual  faultlessness,  the  offering  up  of  all 
the  appointed  sacrifices  and  gifts,  submission  to  all 
the  ordained  penalties,  and  constant  homage  to  the 
letter  of  the  Mosaic  institute.  They  thus  thought  to 
work  out  a  Tightness  or  rightenedness  by  law,  by 
obedience  to  law,  their  own  kind  of  rightenedness, 
not  God's.     The  Jewish  is  only  a  special  and  con- 


JUSTIFICATION   AND    IMPUTATION.  179 

tracted  form  of  the  prevailing  human  idea.  Nothing 
is  more  common,  and  in  one  sense  more  natural,  than 
the  avowal  that  all  which  can  be  expected  of  human 
beings  is,  that  they  strive  to  do  what  is  right,  and  to 
live  holily  and  justly,  as  far  as  they  can, — a  perfectly 
good  and  noble  aim  in  itself,  and  one  with  wliich 
every  Christian  soul  does  and  must  sympathise.  But 
there  is  a  first  thing,  prior  to  all  such  striving  and 
efforts  which  our  Father  seeks  at  our  hands,  it  is  the 
return  of  our  hearts  to  Him,  in  penitence  and  in 
trust.  Everything  must  be  at  fault,  because  spring- 
ing out  of  a  wrong  centre,  till  this  first  step  be  taken. 
No  efforts  of  ours  to  do  right  can  avail,  till  some- 
thing of  the  true  child-spirit,  which  also  is  the  true 
divine  Spirit,  born  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  be  awakened 
within  us.  This  is  the  only  spring  of  genuine 
obedience.  Hence  we  read  in  Komans  iii.  20,  ''  By 
the  deeds  of  the  law  " — by  deeds  of  law,  of  any  kind, 
by  acts  of  obedience — "  there  shall  no  flesh  be  justi- 
fied"— that  is  rightened — "in  His  sight."  God's 
rightness,  God's  kind  of  Tightness,  and  God's  method 
of  rightening,  stand  in  direct  contrast  to  man's  kind 
of  rightness ;  the  rightness  of  law,  man's  idea  of 
rightening  himself  by  obedience. 

In  the  passages  now  to  be  introduced,  we  deem  it 
obvious  that  SiKacoa-vvrj  is  employed  in  the  general 
sense  of  rightness,  and  not  in  the  special  sense  of 
righteousness. 


ISO  JUSTIFICATION  AND   IMPUTATION. 

"  They  being  ignorant  of  God's  Tightness "  ^ — 
God's  kind  and  way  of  rightening ;  it  cannot  mean 
holiness,  for  this  would  be  obviously  inapt  and 
useless  for  the  writer's  present  aim — "  and  going 
about  to  establish  their  own  (kind  of)  Tightness, 
have  not  submitted  themselves  to  the  righteningness 
of  God,"  Gods  icay  of  setting  them  right. 

"  Christ  is  the  end  of  the  law  for  (in  order  to) 
Tightness "2 — in  order  to  rightenedness — "to  every  one, 
that  believeth."  In  every  one  that  believeth,  Christ 
through  this  simple  faith,  accomplishes  the  great  end 
of  all  law — the  making  and  keeping  men  right.  Law 
failed  to  accompKsh  this  end.  Hence  it  is  declared, 
"  What  law  could  not  do,  in  that  it  was  weak  through 
the  flesh,  God  (has  done),  sending  His  own  Son  in 
the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh,  and  for  sin  (He)  has 
condemned  sin  (sentenced  it,  doomed  it  to  death)  in 
the  flesh."     (See  Kom.  viii.  3.) 

"  If  Tightness  come  by  law,  then  Christ  is  dead 
in  vain." 3  Eighteousness  meaning  holiness  does 
come  by  the  law,  by  obedience  to  the  law.  The 
highest  end  even  of  the  death  of  Christ,  is  to  cause 
righteousness,  in  the  sense  of  holiness,  to  come  by 
the  law-  The  statement  of  the  verse  is  false,  un- 
less we  adopt  the  translation,  "  rightness,"  and  then 
it  is  as  true  as  it  is  obvious.  If  Tightness,  if  the 
rightening  of  the  soul  in  its  relation  to  God,  can 

1  Rom.  X.  3.  2  RoQi^  X.  4.  »  q^I.  ii.  21. 


I 


JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION.  181 

be  effected  simply  by  law,  by  command,  even  God's 
command,  then  Christ  has  died  to  no  purpose. 

"  By  faith,  Noah  being  warned  of  God  of  things 
not  as  yet  seen,  moved  with  fear,  prepared  an  ark 
for  the  saving  of  his  house ;  by  the  which  he  con- 
demned the  world,  and  became  heir  of  the  right- 
eousness"— that  kind  of  rightness  in  relation  to 
God — "  which  is  by  faith. "i  That  principle  of  faith, 
simple  trust  in  God,  which  rightened  his  soul,  is 
the  same  which  rightens  every  believing  soul,  and 
is  the  only  medium  of  true  rightness  in  relation  to 
the  Father. 

"  The  rightness  of  God " — God's  kind  of  right- 
ness and  His  way  of  rightening  men — "  is  revealed 
from  faith  to  faith."  2  This  sentence,  as  it  stands, 
is  nearly  unintelligible.  A  slight  change,  which  the 
original  perfectly  admits  of,  will  render  the  mean- 
ing more  plain :  "  The  rightness  of  God  by  " — not 
from — "  faith" — that  kind  of  rightness  which  comes 
only  by  believing — "is  revealed  to  faith,  revealed 
in  order  to  be  believed."  The  clause  immediately 
following  must  be  noted  in  its  bearing  on  the  point 
under  discussion.  As  it  is  written,  "  The  just  shall 
live  by  faith."  Equally  true  to  the  original,  whether 
in  the  Greek  or  in  the  Hebrew,  from  which  the 
sentence  is  first  of  all  taken,  and  more  significant 
and  apposite  is  the  translation,  "  The  just  by  faith 
1  Heb.  xi.  7.  ^  -^^^^  1 17^ 


182  JUSTIFICATION  AND   IMPUTATION. 

shall  live."  The  just,  the  right,  the  righted  by 
faith,  shall  live.  They  are  the  persons  who  shall 
really  live,  and  be  secure  and  blessed.  The  same 
quotation  is  introduced  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians. 

"  That  no  man  is  right ened  by  the  law  is  evident, 
for  the  just  [the  righted]  by  faith  shall  live."  "  And 
the  law  is  not  of  faith,  but" — its  announcement  is 
this — "the  man  that  doeth  them  shall  live  by 
them."l  It  knows  nothing  of  faith;  what  it  de- 
mands is  service. 

"  The  Tightness  of  God,  without  law,  is  mani- 
fested, being  witnessed  by  the  law  and  the  pro- 
phets.''^  This  cannot  be  the  holiness  of  God  or 
of  Christ.  It  is  that  Tightening  of  the  soul, 
through  faith,  without  works  of  law  which  God 
originates.  This  divine  kind  of  Tightness,  the 
apostle  declares,  *'is  now  manifested,  being  wit- 
nessed by  the  law  and  the  prophets,"  "even  the 
lightness  of  God,  which  through  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ  is  unto  all  and  upon  all  that  beHeve." 

"  That  I  may  be  found  in  Him,  not  having  mine 
own  Tightness,  which  is  by  the  law  " — ^by  the  effort 
to  obey — "  but  that  which  is  through  faith  in  Christ, 
the  Tightness  which  is  of  God  (which  God  effects 
and  effects)  through  faith."  3 

"If  Christ  be  in  you  the  body  is  dead  because 

1  Gal.  iii.  11.  "  Rom.  iii.  21.  ^  -pi.^  ^  9, 


JUSTIFICATION  AND   IMPUTATION.  183 

of  sin,  but  the  spirit  is  life,  "because  of  Tightness,"'^ 
— hy  being  rightened. 

The  Old  Testament  furnishes  some  remarkable 
illustrations  of  what  we  here  seek  to  verify. 

*'  Jehovah  our  Tightness  "  2 — our  righteningness — 
Jehovah  who  rightens  us. 

"  The  Lord  is  well  pleased  for  (on  account  of) 
His  rightness-sake," — His  righteningness,  His  work 
and  way  of  Tightening ;  "  He  will  magnify  the  law, 
and  make  it  honourable,"  ^  though  He  does  not  save 
by  works  of  law,  but  by  simple  faith.  For  He  hereby 
originates  a  living  source,  a  true  spirit  of  obedience. 

*'  I  bring  near  my  Tightness," — my  kind  of  Tight- 
ness, my  way  of  righting  the  soul ;  "  it  shall  not 
be  far  off  and  my  salvation  shall  not  tarry."* 
God's  salvation  is  not  rescuing  from  hell,  but  de- 
livering from  evil  within,  really  setting  the  soul 
right  and  free. 

"  My  salvation  is  near  to  come  and  my  Tightness 
to  be  revealed. "5  God's  salvation  is  His  way  of 
Tightening  men,  turning  them  to  Himself. 

There  is  a  cluster  of  passages  in  which,  to  the 
word  "  righteousness  "  or  "  Tightness,"  there  is  added 
another  of  the  select  terms  of  scholastic  theology,  the 
term  *'  impute,"  that  is,  reckon,  or  count.  Several 
of  these  passages  are  connected  with  a  memorable 

1  Eom.  viii.  10.  ^  Jer.  xxiii.  6.  ^  Isa.  xlii.  21. 

4  Isa.  xlvi.  13.  '^  Isa.  Ivi.  1. 


184  JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION. 

incident  in  the  life  of  the  patriarch  Abraham, 
while  he  was  yet  childless.  As  he  gazed  up  to 
the  crowding,  sparkling  stars  of  a  clear  Eastern 
sky,  G-od  promised  him,  "  So  shall  thy  seed  be." 

"  And  he  believed  in  the  Lord,  and  he  counted 
[imputed]  it  to  him  for  (in  order  to)  riglitness : "  1 
in  order  to  his  being  set  right.  Abraham's  faith  was 
counted,  reckoned  to  be  what  it  was,  genuine,  and 
this  state  of  mind,  faith,  essentially  changed  and 
Tightened  his  relation  to  God,  made  it  a  relation 
of  filial  confidence,  submission,  and  obedience. 

"Abraham  believed  God,  and  it  was  counted 
[imputed]  to  him " — it  was  reckoned  to  be  what 
it  was — "  for  rightness,"  2 — {^  order  to  his  heing  set 
right. 

"  To  him  that  worketh  not,  but  belie veth  in  him 
that  righteneth  the  ungodly,  his  faith  is  counted 
to  him  for  Tightness,"  ^ — in  order  to  his  heing  set 
right.  Faith  does  for  him  what  no  works,  no  acts 
of  obedience  could  do.  It  sets  his  soul  right  to- 
wards God. 

"  Even  as  David  describeth  the  blessedness  of  the 
man,  unto  whom  God  imputeth  righteousness" — 
whom  God  counteth  right  in  relation  to  Himself— 
"  without  works/'  ^  God  counteth  a  man  right  who 
is  right,  though  not  righteous — whose  spirit  is  right 

1  Gen.  XV.  6.  ^  Rom.  iv.  3. 

^  Rom.  iv.  5.  *  Rom.  iv.  6. 


JUSTIFICATION   AND    IMPUTATION.  185 

and  rightened  in  relation  to  Himself.  Out  of  this 
right  and  rightened  spirit  will  spring — the  highest 
form  of  rightness — righteousness,  true  obedience. 

"  Abraham  received  the  sign  of  circumcision,  a 
seal  of  the  rightnefcs  which  he  had,  yet  being  un- 
circumcised," — for  his  soul  was  rightened,  so  soon 
as  he  gave  it  up,  in  simple  faith  to  God,  and  cir- 
cumcision was  only  an  outer  and  later  sign  of  an 
inward  and  earlier  state — a  state  which  was  real, 
independently  of  this  sign,  and  before  it  was  given, 
— "  that  he  might  be  the  Father  of  all  that  believe," 
— not  of  the  circumcision  only,  but  of  all  that 
believe, — "  though  they  be  not  circumcised  ;  that 
rightness  might  be  imputed  [counted]  to  them 
also : "  1  even  as  it  was  to  him,  when  he  was  un- 
circumcised.  That  which  alone  ever  rightened  and 
ever  rightens  the  soul  is  faith — simple  trust  towards 
God.  The  circumcised,  if  they  have  not  faith,  are 
not  rightened  in  relation  to  God,  and  cannot  be 
reckoned  right.  The  uncircumcised,  if  they  have 
faith,  are  right  as  Abraham  was,  and  are  reckoned 
right. 

"  Abraham  believed  God,  and  it  was  counted 
to  him  for  rightness,"^  — in  order  to  his  being 
set  right;  he  was  accounted  right,  and  he  was 
right. 

"  Abraham  believed  God,  and  it  was  imputed  to 

1  Kom.  iv.  11.  2  QaL  iii.  6. 


186  JUSTIFICATION  AND   IMPUTATION. 

him  for  [in  order  to]  rightness ;  and  he  was  called 
the  Friend  of  God."  i 

These  passages  must  impress  every  mind  with 
the  exceeding  graciousness  and  the  transparent 
equity  and  uprightness  of  the  Most  High  —  His 
righteous,  truthful,  open  dealing  with  His  sinful 
children.  He  imputes  faith  to  those  who  have 
faith,  and  rightness  to  those  who  are  righted  and 
right.  He  counts  faith  to  be  genuine ;  and  right- 
ness of  soul  in  relation  to  Himself  to  be  real,  simply 
because  they  are  so,  and  for  no  other  reason  what- 
ever. Among  the  surest  of  all  verities  is  this,  that 
God  never  can  count  a  thing  to  be  what  it  is  not, 
but  ever  must  only  and  simply  count  a  thing  to 
bo  what  it  is,  and  no  more.  As  surely  as  God 
knows  and  sees  everything  and  every  being  exactly 
as  they  are,  so  surely  can  He  never  consider,  never 
think  them  to  be  other  than  they  are.  And  if  He 
can  never  think  them  to  be  what  they  are  not,  far 
less  can  He  give  out,  or  in  any  way  create,  the  im- 
pression that  He  does  so  think. 

Among  men,  imputation,  both  as  an  idea  and 
as  a  fact,  is  very  distinctly  recognised.  Imputed 
righteousness  and  imputed  sin,  in  a  certain  modi- 
fied sense,  are  not  at  all  foreign  to  the  thought 
or  to  the  living  experience  of  the  world.  A  man 
shall  inherit  a  dishonoured  name,  and  shall  succeed 

1  Jas.  ii.  23. 


JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION.  187 

to  a  life  of  infamy,  and  penury,  and  pain,  not 
through  any  fault  of  his  own,  but  wholly  through 
the  sin  of  others,  with  whom  he  stands  connected, 
will  he  or  will  he  not.  He  suffers  by  a  sort  of 
imputation.  The  son  of  a  criminal  is  first  of  all 
distrusted,  and  without  the  slightest  fault  known 
against  him  personally,  the  judgment  and  the  feel- 
ings of  his  fellow-creatures  towards  him  are  deeply 
prejudiced,  in  consequence  merely  of  his  descent. 
In  effect,  it  is,  as  if  we  imputed  to  him  sins  which 
are  not  really  his,  not  his  at  all,  and  in  spite  of 
himself  he  is  compelled,  to  some  extent,  to  bear 
the  punishment  of  those  sins.  The  general  course 
of  the  world  seems  to  look  in  the  same  direction. 
The  Judge  of  all  the  earth  has  the  most  perfect 
knowledge  of  each  of  His  intelligent  creatures. 
There  can  be  no  iniquity  with  Him.  On  the  whole 
and  in  the  end,  not  a  human  being  shall  be  able  to 
find,  in  the  treatment  he  has  received,  the  slightest 
violation  of  equity.  But  the  present  is  confessedly 
not  a  final  but  a  temporary  state,  a  probationary, 
imperfect,  and  mixed  condition,  in  which  no  legiti- 
mate, comparative  conclusion  as  to  individual  char- 
acter and  desert,  can  be  drawn  from  what  is  merely 
visible  and  outward.  "  Suppose  ye  that  those 
Galileans  (whose  blood  Pilate  mingled  with  their 
sacrifices)  were  sinners  above  all  the  Galileans, 
because  they  suffered  such  things?      I   tell  you, 


188  JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION. 

Nay  ;  but  except  ye  repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise 
perish.  Or  those  eighteen  on  whom  the  tower 
of  Siloam  fell  and  slew  them,  think  ye  that  they 
were  sinners  above  all  the  men  w^ho  dwelt  in  Jerusa- 
lem? I  tell  you,  Nay;  but  except  ye  repent,  ye 
shall  all  likewise  perish."  Amidst  the  inevitable 
complications  and  confusions  of  the  present  state 
of  being,  one  event  often  befalls  the  good  and  the 
bad  indiscriminately.  Natural  evils,  public  and 
special  calamities  overtake  men,  wholly  irrespective 
of  their  individual  character.  Slavery  and  war, 
robbery  and  murder,  wicked  legislation,  and  de- 
moralising principles  and  habits,  entail  endless  evils 
on  innocent  multitudes  and  on  generations  unborn. 
The  sins  and  faults  of  men,  by  a  species  of  imputa- 
tion, come  down  on  those  who  had  no  share  whatever 
in  originally  perpetrating  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  character  which  a  good 
and  great  man  has  gained  by  his  personal  virtues, 
is  bequeathed  to  his  children.  The  world  is  pre- 
pared beforehand  to  respect  and  trust  the  son,  for 
the  father's  sake,  and  to  put  to  his  account  ex- 
cellences not  really  his  at  all.  Certain  races  and 
lines  of  descent  possess  a  kind  of  imputed  worth 
altogether  apart  from  their  individual  qualities.  A 
nation  shall  be  exalted  in  the  reputation  which 
belongs  only  to  a  single  man  in  it.  Because  that 
man  was  born,  and  lived,  and  died  in  the  land, 


JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION.  189 

the  whole  people  of  it  shall  have  a  glory  reflected  on 
them,  to  which,  on  personal  grounds,  they  have  no 
claim  whatever. 

There  is  strong  reason  in  all  this.  It  is  a  patent 
fact,  make  of  it  what  we  may,  but  it  is  a  fact 
very  sufficiently  based  in  truth  and  justice.  It  is 
only  right  to  cherish  and  to  express  respect  for 
genuine  excellence,  wherever  it  is  found.  It  is 
only  right  to  keep  alive  in  ourselves  and  others 
the  memory  of  such  excellence ;  and  when  the  good 
man  has  passed  away,  it  would  be  a  crime  not  to 
guard  his  name  with  tender  jealousy,  and  not  to 
deal  lovingly,  for  his  sake,  with  those  whom  he 
leaves  behind.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  only 
right  to  visit  crime  with  reprobation,  to  maintain 
a  salutary  dread  of  coming  into  contact  with  it, 
and  to  avoid  those  who  may  be  conc^eived  to  have 
inherited  its  taint.  But  all  the  while,  it  is  never 
to  be  forgotten,  as  an  unassailable  principle,  that 
real  moral  worth  and  real  moral  demerit  are  not, 
and  cannot  be  in  any  sense  or  in  any  degree, 
transferable  or  imputable.  No  rightly  constituted 
mind  imagines  for  a  moment  that  they  are  ;  the 
idea  is  not  only  false,  but  impossible  and  absurd. 
If  there  be,  as  we  have  seen  there  is,  an  inevitable 
imputation,  whereby  men  are  often  involved  indis- 
criminately in  the  same  external  good  or  evil ;  and 
if  there  be,  besides,  an    instinctive  imputation   of 


190  JUSTIFICATION   AND    IMPUTATION. 

good  and  of  evil  from  father  to  son,  which  on 
some  grounds  is  honourable  to  our  nature  and  is 
also  not  without  its  uses  in  fostering  virtue,  and 
in  punishing  vice  ;  in  both  cases  alike,  it  is  only 
by  a  figure  of  speech,  that  the  word  "  imputation"  is 
employed  at  all.  It  is  not  supposed  to  be  a  reality. 
We  do  not  reckon  or  count,  no  one  reckons  a  man 
to  be  either  good  or  bad,  because  his  father  was 
the  one  or  the  other.  He  is  really  good  or  bad 
in  himself,  and  on  no  other  account  whatever,  and 
is  neither  better  personally,  nor  worse  personally, 
from  the  mere  fact  that  his  father  was  an  eminent 
saint,  or  a  notorious  criminal. 

In  a  case  of  law,  when  one  man  pays  the  debt 
of  another,  and  thus  saves  him  from  punishment, 
it  is  never  reckoned  or  counted,  never  by  any 
species  of  legal  fiction  considered,  that  the  first 
owed  the  debt.  The  debt  is  not  imputed  to  him. 
It  is  thoroughly  understood  that  he  is  not  the 
debtor.  The  second  is  the  debtor,  and  cannot, 
without  falsehood,  be  reckoned  or  counted  to  be  not 
the  debtor.  In  the  highest  imaginable  case,  if  a 
friend  were  to  suffer  imprisonment  or  death,  in 
order  to  save  a  criminal  who  had  been  convicted 
and  sentenced,  it  could  never  be  thought  by  any 
sane  man,  could  never  be  reckoned  or  judged,  that 
the  crime  was  transferred  to  the  friend,  or  could 
possibly  be  transferred,  and  that  the  criminal  in 


JUSTIFICATION    AND    IMPUTATION.  191 

consequence  of  this  transference  or  imputation  was 
innocent.  But  in  simple  fact,  it  is  more  than 
questionable  whether  such  a  case  as  is  supposed 
has  ever  been  historically  verified.  If  it  have,  it 
must  unhesitatingly  be  pronounced  not  an  honour 
but  a  disgrace,  and  a  crime  in  human  law.  It 
may  often  be  wise  and  right  to  forgive  an  evil-doer, 
or  to  modify  his  punishment,  but  to  take  away  life 
which  has  not  been  forfeited,  or  even  liberty,  is  an 
atrocious  offence  against  the  plainest  obligations  of 
equity.  However  willing  a  man  may  be  to  sacrifice 
himself  for  another,  at  least  human  law  can  never 
sanction,  cannot  even  tolerate  such  enormity,  without 
stepping  altogether  out  of  its  sphere,  and  incurring 
unmitigated  reprobation. 

The  reference  of  divine  procedure  to  the  analogies 
of  human  law  has  been  misleading  and  disastrous. 
It  is  most  true  that  God  is  the  supreme  judge  of 
His  creatures,  and  is  very  often  so  distinguished 
in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  He  judges  every  rational 
being,  good  or  bad — unerringly,  righteously,  merci- 
fully. He  judges.  At  every  instant,  the  judgment 
of  the  Holy  One,  in  reference  to  every  human  soul, 
is  fixed,  because  at  every  instant,  the  Holy  One  sees 
every  human  soul  exactly  as  it  is.  It  is  most  right 
and  wise  to  keep  firm  hold  of  this  grand  truth,  and 
it  may  be  lawful  besides  to  allow  the  imagination  to 
body  it  forth,  by  the  aid  of  whatever  analogies  and 


192  JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION. 

accessories  it  can  create.  It  may  be  quite  lawful 
to  picture  a  court  of  justice,  a  judgment  seat,  God 
enthroned  as  judge,  and  man  arraigned  before  Him. 
It  may  be  quite  lawful  to  picture  a  suit  conducted 
with  all  the  usual  forms  of  law,  the  charge  made  on 
the  one  side,  and  admitted  or  denied  on  the  other 
side,  and  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  asked  to  show 
cause  why  sentence  against  him  should  not  go  forth. 
Such  a  picture,  besides,  it  is  quite  possible  might  be 
so  drawn,  as  to  produce  a  deep  impression  on  certain 
minds,  and  to  lead  to  very  salutary  results.  The 
obvious  cause  is  this,  that  underneath  the  selected 
imagery,  there  is  a  real  and  great  spiritual  truth,  of 
which  the  mind  may  take"  hold  and  into  which  it 
may  gain  a  profounder  insight — the  truth  of  God's 
perfect,  certain,  and  instant  knowledge  of  our  actual 
state  and  desert.  But  we  deal  falsely  with  men 
and  with  sacred  things,  unless  we  make  known  that 
this  is  all  which  is  meant  to  be  conveyed,  and  that 
the  picture  containing  this  truth  is  a  picture  and 
nothing  more — our  creation,  not  God's.  T«  treat 
the  picture  as  a  reality,  and  to  found  religious 
doctrine  on  its  separate  details,  details  which  mere 
human  fancy  has  wrought  into  shape,  is  surely 
wrong,  and  must  be  very  dangerous.  The  under- 
lying truth  that  God  sees  at  every  moment  the  very 
state  of  every  human  soul,  is  of  all  others  most 


JUSTIFICATION   AND    IMPUTATION.  193 

momentous  and  most  sure.     But  all  beyond  this  is 
wholly  unreal,  is  mere  pure  imagination. 

It  is  highly  probable  that  the  idea  of  this  de- 
ceptive, spiritual  scene-painting  has  been  taken 
from  the  doctrine  of  a  judgment-day,  at  the  final 
consummation,  when  ages  beyond  reckoning  shall 
have  passed  away.  But  the  two  differ  in  the  most 
essential  respects.  The  supposed  picture  is  of  a 
present  experience,  during  the  earthly  life,  and  it  is 
in  every  point  the  mere  baseless  fabric  of  a  dream. 
There  is  no  court  of  justice,  no  judgment-seat,  no 
trial,  no  process  of  charge  and  defence,  no  verdict 
and  no  condemnation.  The  simple  fact  is,  that 
human  sin  is  discovered,  is  perfectly  seen,  and  is 
judged,  condemned,  and  punished  in  the  instant 
it  is  committed.  All  its  consequences,  especially  all 
its  physical  consequences,  are  not  at  once  realised, 
but  essentially,  inwardly,  its  penal  effect  is  immediate. 
When  it  is  committed,  no  opportunity  of  explaining 
it  is  offered,  no  defence,  no  palliation  is  asked  for, 
would  be  listened  to,  or  is  possible,  just  because  the 
exact  amount  of  demerit  which  belongs  to  it  is 
seen  at  once  without  the  possibility  of  mistake. 
In  regard  to  the  spiritual  government  of  God,  and 
to  the  spiritual  laws  of  the  universe,  sin  and  punish- 
ment are  inseparable  and  simultaneous.  Without 
trial,   or  judge,  or  judgment,  sin  instantaneously 

N 


194  JUSTIFICATION   AND   IMPUTATION. 

punishes  itself  in  the  soul.  It  may,  indeed,  and 
does  prepare  for  itself,  in  the  evolutions  of  earthly 
providence,  palpable,  material  penalties,  which  are 
not  yet  endured,  but  the  reallest  punishment  de- 
scends on  the  instant,  and  comes  out  of  the  very 
nature  of  sin  itself.  No  possibility,  legal,  judicial, 
or  otherwise,  of  escape  exists,  save  by  the  expulsion 
and  destruction  of  the  dire  root  of  evil.  Hence 
justification  is  not  a  process  of  law  at  all,  nor  the 
mere  formal  act  of  a  judge ;  it  is  a  real,  inward, 
entire  change.  The  man  is  really  rightened,  not 
legally  acquitted ;  that  which  was  wrong  in  him  in 
relation  to  God  is  set  right — is  begun  to  be  set 
right.  He  is  turned  to  God,  instead  of  being  turned 
away  from  Him.  Beholding  God  in  Christ,  he  no 
longer  resists  the  divine  appeal,  but  yields  at  last 
with  his  whole  heart  to  a  loving,  forgiving,  much 
enduring,  self-sacrificing  Father. 

The  simplicity,  the  beauty,  and  the  power  of 
Christ's  own  gospel,  are  irresistible.  No  uncouth, 
hard  terms  meet  us  here,  no  nice,  legal  definitions, 
no  endless,  fretting  distinctions,  and  no  guarded, 
inflexible  forms,  barring  the  way  on  this  hand  and 
on  that — nothing  but  pure  love,  immaculate,  infinite, 
self-sacrificing,  holy  love.  The  simple  short  tale 
has  often  been  rehearsed,  but  it  is  overpowering, 
and  warm,  and  fresh  still.  The  Great  God  loves 
the  soul  He  hath  made,  and  would  save  it.      But 


JUSTIFICATION   AND    IMPUTATION.  195 

even  He  cannot  save  it,  except  by  setting  it  right. 
Away  from  Him,  it  is  away  from  life.  The  life 
must  come  near,  must  come  down,  must  come  into 
man,  and  must  find  a  way  to  the  sacred  depths  of  his 
spiritual  nature.  God  must  make  man's  heart  His 
own,  must  draw  and  turn  it  to  Himself,  by  the  pure 
omnipotence  of  love.  And  He  does.  "  The  Life," 
the  Living  One  "was  manifested,"  was  embodied, 
was  incarnated.  Through  Christ,  through  the  living 
Christ,  highest  of  all  through  the  dying  Christ,  as 
the  chosen  medium,i  (Mediator,)  very  God  comes 
near  to  man,  and  man  turns  to  draw  near  to  God. 
The  divine  Spirit  touches  the  human  spirit,  and 
the  touch  is  almighty.  Divine  life  breathes  on 
human  death ;  divine  light  dawns  on  human  dark- 
ness. "The  Life,"  "The  Living  One"  is  the 
Light  of  men.  And  "the  True  Light  is  the  Life 
of  men." 

^  See  note,  p.  27. 


CHAPTEE  VII. 


SACRIFICE. 


Is  God  Essentially  Self-sacrificing  ? — Lesson  to  Universe — Sacrificial 
Rite,  Universal — Esthetic  Gradation — Contrary  to  Facts — 
Animal  Sacrifice  —  Earliest  Form  of  Offering  —  Taking  of 
Animal  Life,  Revolting — In  Name  and  by  Command  of  God 
— 1.  Provision  for  Human  Sustenance — 2.  Merciful  Protection 
to  Animal  Creation — Sacredness  of  Life — Worship  of  Life- 
giver — Surrender  back  of  His  own — Virtual  Self-surrender — 
3.  Silent  Confession  of  Life  Forfeited  and  of  Sin— Early 
Revolting  Corruptions  of  Sacrificial  Rite, 


IT  is  an  old  idea,  that  the  Creation  is  grounded  in 
sacrifice,  divine  self-sacrifice,  and  that  the  uni- 
versal fabric  of  nature  is  based  and  built  up  on  this 
mysterious  fact.  Creation  began,  it  is  thought,  in 
an  act  of  self  abandonment ;  after  it  had  fallen  into 
evil,  it  was  redeemed  through  the  humiliation  and 
suffering  of  the  Incarnate,  and  it  shall  be  perpetuated 
for  ever  in  blessedness  and  purity  by  the  holy  spirit 
of  self-surrender  and  love.  It  was  a  sacrifice  on  the 
part  of  God  to  create  at  all,  for  in  the  very  act 
of  creating,  He  brought  Himself  into  relation  with 
inferior  being, — conditioned,  limited,  sacrificed  Him- 
self. And,  in  human  conception,  the  world,  as  it 
now  is,  peopled  by  creatures  endowed  with  will,  and 
capable  of  resisting  their  Maker,  and  of  introducing, 
as  they  have  in  fact  introduced,  immense  evil,  can  be 
only  a  burden,  if  not  a  grief. 

The  universe  at  its  birth  was  a  joy  to  its  Creator, 
and  it  may  yet  become,  in  an  immeasurably  higher 
sense,  an  eternal,  divine  joy ;  but,  like  other  births, 
this  also,  it  is  conceived,  was  accomplished  through 
humiliation  and  sacrifice.     The  literal  cross  of  the 


200  SACRIFICK 


divine  man  of  Nazareth  was  the  late  outward  sym- 
bol of  an  earlier,  an  unseen  cross,  which  had  been 
serenely  borne  by  the  Infinite  Father,  ever  since  the 
beginning  of  the  ages.  Not  on  Calvary,  for  the  first 
time,  did  God  sacrifice  Himself  for  the  sake  of  His 
creatures.  He  only  proclaimed  there,  in  an  impres- 
sive and  awful  form,  what,  since  the  first  moment  of 
time,  had  been  a  universal,  underlying,  all-embrac- 
ing truth. 

It  might  be  unwise  either  wholly  to  accept,  or 
wholly  to  reject,  these  peculiar  speculations.  That 
they  have  at  least  some  foundation  of  reality  it  is 
impossible  to  deny,  and  they  may  have  a  bearing, 
more  important  than  is  at  first  discerned,  on  the 
spiritual  discipline  and  on  the  ultimate  destiny  of 
the  intelligent  universe.  Beyond  question,  for  all 
time  and  all  temporal  beings,  sacrifice  lies  at  the 
root  of  real  good.  True  nobility,  true  greatness,  and 
all  highest  spiritual  excellence,  grow  only  out  of  this 
strong  subsoil.  Universally,  at  least  for  men,  a 
cross  is  the  way  to  a  crown.  The  hard-won  victory 
over  self  and  sin,  which  issues  in  the  free,  entire, 
and  eternal  yielding  up  of  our  will  to  the  good  will 
of  God,  can  only  be  the  fruit  of  sore  conflict  and  of 
stern  self-sacrifice. 

But  a  truth  so  vital  as  this,  and  one  which  is, 
besides,  on  many  accounts,  so  repellant,  both  de- 
served and  needed  to  be  impressed  on  the  universe 


SACRIFICE.  201 


by  extraordinary  methods.  Hence  it  is  conceived 
that  the  Loving  Father,  from  the  first,  stooped  to 
teach  His  creatures  by  His  own  example,  and  ex- 
hibited Himself,  as  the  grand  instance  and  pattern 
of  self-sacrifice.  The  lesson,  early  taught,  was  there- 
after wrought  into  the  very  texture  of  the  entire  web 
of  finite  existence,  comes  up,  ever  and  again,  in 
broad  and  strong  outlines,  on  the  lengthening  woof 
of  time,  and  at  last  was  enstamped  in  colours  that 
shall  never  fade,  whose  hue  is  caught  from  the 
mingled  shades  of  Bethlehem  and  Nazareth,  Geth- 
semane  and  Jerusalem.  Far  ofi*,  in  the  distant 
past,  where  the  awful  line  divides  time  from  eter- 
nity, in  the  moment  and  the  act  of  creation,  as  on 
a  lofty  summit,  to  be  seen  by  all  the  ages  and  the 
races  following,  the  Great  Being  imprinted  and 
lifted  up  a  divine  cross.  Ever  onward  through 
the  generations  He  drew  the  world's  eye  to  the 
awful  symbol ;  and  at  last,  by  the  anguish  and 
the  shame  of  Calvary,  He  appealed,  and  continues 
to  appeal,  to  the  heart  of  the  universe,  that  it  may 
open  wide  to  the  lesson  of  suffering  and  of  sacrifice. 

The  universality  of  the  sacrificial  rite  among  all 
nations,  as  well  in  modern  as  in  ancient  times,  is  not 
unrelated  to  this  train  of  thought — is  perhaps  best 
interpreted  by  it.  And  closely  connected  with  the 
universality  of  the  rite  is  the  question  of  its  origin, 
whether   divine  or  human.      The  early   Christian 


202  SACRIFICE. 


fathers,  with  few  exceptions,  and  along  with  them 
many  ancient  and  eminent  Jewish  Kabbis,  main- 
tained the  purely  human  origin  of  sacrifice.  It  was 
recognised  and  expressly  sanctioned  by  God,  but  it 
was  first  of  all  the  thought  and  the  act  of  man. 
Were  it  possible  to  ascertain  with  certainty  what 
the  earliest  form  of  sacred  offering  was,  whether 
strictly  sacrificial  or  consisting  only  of  the  fruits 
of  the  earth,  this  would,  in  a  great  degree,  deter- 
mine the  question  of  their  divine  or  human  origin. 
But  the  point  is  one  of  great  difficulty,  and  is  the 
subject  of  a  very  wide  diversity  of  opinion.  Besides, 
the  field  of  inquiry  is  by  no  means  perfectly  open. 
One  is  not  at  liberty,  in  such  a  region,  to  indulge 
freely  in  speculation  and  in  fancy,  and  to  form  out, 
as  it  shall  strike  his  imagination,  an  artistic  and 
aesthetic  theory  of  the  origin  and  the  early  form  of 
religious  worship.  Were  it  otherwise,  there  would 
be  no  difficulty  in  picturing,  as  many  have  actually 
done,  a  state  of  comparative  innocence  and  inex- 
;perience,  the  juvenile,  almost  infantile,  state  of  the 
human  race,  in  which  very  childish  and  rude  notions 
of  God  prevailed.  In  such  a  state,  we  could  imagine 
that  natural  taste,  and  the  sense  of  propriety,  and 
of  common  gratitude,  might  suggest  the  presentation 
to  God  of  some  visible  token  of  reverence  and  of 
homage.  First  of  all,  the  most  simple  and  beautiful 
objects  in  nature  would  be  selected;   wild  flowers 


SACKIFICE.  203 


would  be  laid  upon  the  altar,  as  an  acknowledgment 
of  the  All-beautiful  and  the  All-good.  In  the  pro- 
gress of  the  religious  idea,  fruits,  as  more  valuable, 
would  be  added  to  flowers.  Thereafter,  as  more 
valuable  still,  the  produce  of  the  fields — corn,  and 
oil,  and  wine — would  express  the  thankfulness  of 
the  creature  to  the  Creator.  Last  of  all,  and  still 
increasing  in  material  value,  and  therefore  more 
expressive  of  the  respect  and  submission  of  the 
worshipper,  the  firstlings  of  the  flock  and  of  the 
herd  would  be  presented  to  God,  and  be  either 
wholly  offered  up  in  His  honour,  or  so  partially 
surrendered  as  to  make  the  whole,  in  a  high  sense, 
sacred. 

Such  in  fact,  it  has  been  conceived,  is  the  natural 
history  and  the  gradual  development  of  the  rite  of 
sacrifice — in  the  first  instance  a  merely  human  idea, 
extending  itseh,  by  degrees,  with  the  progress  of 
knowledge  and  of  material  cultivation,  and  perhaps, 
also,  with  the  deepening  consciousness  of  evil.  But 
it  is  legitimate  to  ask,  in  all  simplicity,  is  not  this 
pure  fancy,  a  dream,  a  beautiful  dream  indeed,  but 
nothing  more  than  a  mere  dream  of  the  imagina- 
tion ?  Where  is  the  evidence  of  this  fancied,  natu- 
ral gradation,  in  sacred  ofierings,  from  flowers  to 
animal  sacrifice  ?  It  exists  not.  Where  are  those 
innocent  forefathers  of  our  race  who,  in  their  juve- 
nile, grateful,  unsuspicious  sentiments  towards  God, 


204  SACRIFICE. 


laid  flowers  on  His  altar,  in  token  of  their  beautiful, 
simple  faith?  They  are  not  to  be  found.  The 
solitary  thing  favouring  this  idea  at  all  has  not  long 
ago  been  put  forward  by  some  students  of  Hindoo 
mythology.  From  the  most  ancient  of  the  sacred 
books  of  Asia,  they  are  disposed  to  infer  that  the 
produce  of  the  garden  and  the  field  must  have  been 
presented  to  the  gods  before  animal  life  was  sacri- 
ficed. But  in  this  region,  investigation  is  yet  com- 
paratively immature,  and  the  inference,  which  is 
but  an  inference,  is  one  which  it  is  far  from  unlikely 
more  thorough  research  may  set  aside.  In  all  other 
regions,  the  evidence  is  distinctly  to  this  effect,  that 
flowers  and  fruits,  instead  of  preceding  sacrifices, 
were  added  to  them  as  a  matter  of  taste,  and  for 
the  sake  of  embellishment.  As  we  search  back  into 
the  remote  past,  under  the  guidance  of  authentic 
history,  or  even  of  popular  tradition,  we  find  not 
simple,  but  very  gross  and  dishonouring,  conceptions 
of  the  divine  nature,  and  not  beautiful,  but  very 
barbarous  and  revolting,  modes  of  religious  worship. 
The  civilisations  of  the  early  world  were  truly  mar- 
vellous, but  they  were  wholly  material,  not  spiritual 
at  all.  Majestic  temples  were  reared,  and  gorgeous 
ceremonies  were  observed,  but  we  look  in  vain  for 
an  influence  descending  from  them  to  exalt  and 
ennoble  the  objects  of  worship,  or  to  simplify  and 
purify  the  forms  of  sacred  service. 


SACRIFICE.  205 


The  ancient  Phoenicians,  Assyrians,  Egyptians, 
Persians,  Indians,  Grreeks,  and  Komans,  supply  no 
evidence  of  a  supposed  progressive  development  from 
simple  to  bloody  rites,  and  no  illustration  of  the  com- 
parative innocence  and  childlike  spirit  of  early  faith. 
The  very  reverse  of  this  is  the  solemn,  sad  truth. 
Animal  sacrifices,  numerous  and  revolting,  are  among 
the  earliest  things  which  meet  us  in  the  history  of 
ancient  nations.  Among  the  Greeks  and  Komans, 
whose  annals  are  best  known,  animal  sacrifice,  from 
the  very  earliest  period,  was  identified  with  divine 
worship.  It  is  almost  decisive  of  the  whole  question  ; 
that  in  that  holy  volume  i — whose  introductory  por- 
tions, in  spite  of  German  and  British  critics,  can  be 
proved,  as  we  ventm-e  to  judge,  not  on  presumptive  or 
conjectural  ground,  but  on  what  competent  scholars 
regard  as  strong  historical  evidence,  to  be  the  earliest 
authentic  writings  in  the  world — and  in  the  first  no- 
tice given  of  divine  worship  there,2  animal  sacrifice, 

^  I  do  not  for  a  moment  presume  to  determine  for  others  such  a 
question  as  the  date  of  the  Mosaic  writings.  But  it  is  no  presump- 
tion to  form  a  judgment  for  one's-self  respecting  conflicting  evidences 
which  are  put  forward.  By  all  means,  let  the  question  be  left  open 
to  discussion  and  criticism  on  all  sides.  But  it  is  not  conducive  to 
a  wise,  final  determination  to  assume,  as  is  too  often  done  by  one 
class  of  writers,  and  not  very  modestly,  that  the  matter  is  settled  for 
all  time,  and  that  those  who  attach  weight  to  the  very  strong  evi- 
dence on  the  other  side,  and  believe  in  the  early  date  of  the  Penta- 
teuch, must  be  either  ignorant  or  prejudiced.  This  is  not  the  mode 
in  which  the  spirit  of  truth  reveals  or  vindicates  itself. 

2  Gen.  iv.  3,  4. 


206  SACKIFICE. 


as  well  as  the  fruit  of  tlie  ground,  is  specially  men- 
tioned. The  only  other  instances  afterwards  named 
in  Holy  Scripture,  up  to  the  time  of  Moses,  those  of 
Noah,  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  are  precisely  to 
the  same  effect.  And  in  the  Mosaic  economy,  its 
prominent,  distinguishing  feature,  from  its  com- 
mencement to  its  close,  may  be  left  to  speak  for  itself. 
On  the  whole,  in  the  present  stage  of  inquiry,  the 
preponderance  (at  the  least)  of  reliable  evidence  is  in 
favour  of  the  conclusion,  that  animal  sacrifices  were 
the  earliest  form  of  religious  worship. 

The  question  is,  In  what  can  animal  sacrifices  have 
originated  ?  Shall  we  say,  in  the  unprompted,  un- 
aided reason  and  conscience  of  man,  or  in  a  divine 
intimation  and  command?  The  individual  convic- 
tion is  here  expressed,  that  not  man,  but  God  must 
have  been  the  author  of  the  sacrificial  rite.  The  very 
idea  of  acknowledgment  to  God  at  all,  of  outward 
material  acknowledgment  to  God,  not  in  the  form  of 
sacrifice,  but  even  in  the  presentation  of  flowers  and 
fruits,  could  never  have  been  spontaneously  adopted, 
far  less  originated  by  the  human  mind.  We,  with 
our  churches,  and  chancels,  and  altars,  and  vestments, 
and  vessels,  and  flowers,  and  ornaments,  forget  that 
we  have  grown  up,  through  a  long  process,  and  by 
the  slow  teaching  of  ages,  into  the  later  thoughts 
which  are  conceived  to  demand  or  to  justify  these 
things.       But  man  in  his   original   condition  had 


SACRIFICE.  207 


the  very  first  step  in  this  long  process  to  learn.  In 
his  untaught,  inexperienced  simplicity  and  natural- 
ness, would  it  not  occur  to  him  at  once  to  ask,  and 
would  it  not  disabuse  his  mind  of  all  idea  of  material 
acknowledgment  to  God,  when  he  asked  himself, 
"  What  can  such  presentations  be,  or  do,  to  an  un- 
seen, spiritual  Being  ?  how  can  they  aifect  or  influ- 
ence Him  in  any  way  ?  "  We  can  readily  conceive  that 
men  in  the  primitive  ages  might  be  natively  predis- 
posed, and  prepared  to  believe  that  their  Creator  was 
not  indifferent  to  the  state  of  their  minds,  and  was 
not  ignorant  of  their  joy  or  their  sorrow,  their  thank- 
fulness or  their  penitence.  We  can  readily  conceive 
that  they  might  spontaneously  utter  and  express  these 
affections  in  the  way  that  natural  instinct  dictates, 
and  that  penitence  and  sorrow  would  reveal  them- 
selves in  the  sadness  of  the  countenance,  in  flowing 
tears,  and  in  sounds  and  words  of  lamentation.  We 
can  readily  conceive  that,  in  the  warm  gratitude  and 
the  gushing  joy  of  their  hearts,  they  might  deck 
themselves  with  flowers,  and  sing  and  make  merry 
and  feast  together  on  the  fruits  and  the  produce  of 
God's  earth.  But  to  offer  anything  to  Him,  to  make 
a  present  of  anything  to  Grod,  who  possesses  all  things  ! 
how  could  this  be  ?  What  meaning  could  it  have, 
which  was  not  either  palpably  absurd  or  deeply  in- 
sulting ?  IIow  vast  is  the  leap  from  what  is  natural 
and  credible  to  what  seems  contradictory  and  foolish  ! 


208  SACKIFICE. 


Where  were  men  to  place  their  flowers  and  fruits, 
that  they  might  be  nearer  to  God,  or  more  under  His 
eye,  than  if  they  were  left  where  they  grew  ?  And 
place  them  wherever  they  might,  the  offerers  would 
see  that  there,  where  they  placed  them,  they  lay,  un- 
touched, unnoticed,  till  they  wasted,  decayed,  and 
perished.  There  is  a  deep,  wide  gulf  between  reli- 
gious sentiments  and  affections  and  any  outward, 
material  offering  to  an  unseen  and  spiritual  Being, 
— a  gulf  across  which  man  himself  could  never  have 
thrown  a  pathway.  We  conclude  that  the  idea  of 
outward,  material  offering  to  God  must  have  been  a 
divine  suggestion,  not  an  unprompted,  spontaneous 
birth  of  the  human  mind. 

Whatever  truth  there  be  in  the  course  of  thought 
we  have  pursued,  it  bears  with  tenfold  force  upon  the 
fact  that  animal  sacrifices  were,  as  we  judge,  the 
earliest  form  of  sacred  offering.  All  must  admit  that 
in  itself,  sacrifice  is  a  coarse  and  cruel  rite.  The 
question  is.  Could  man  of  himself  merely,  by  any 
natural  process  of  thought  or  feeling  combined,  have 
come  to  think  and  believe  that  such  a  rite  stood  in 
close  relation,  in  most  holy  relation,  to  the  blessed 
God  ?  Could  he  ever  have  come  to  regard  it,  as  not 
only  innocent  and  not  only  praiseworthy,  but  most 
sacred,  a  solemn  act  of  piety  ?  We  are  so  habitu- 
ated to  the  idea,  and  the  word,  sacrifice,  so  trained 
in  the  notion  of  the  connexion  of  sacrifice  with  sin 


SACRIFICE.  209 


and  with  divine  forgiveness,  that  it  is  only  by  a 

severe  effort  we  are  able  to  conceive  of  it  naturally 

and  impartially,  and  in  itself  merely.     But  suppose 

the  entire  absence  of  all  our  training  and  associations 

and  modes   of  thinking, —  suppose  primitive   man, 

with  only  his  mere  judgment  and  conscience,  his 

natural  mode  and  power  of  looking  at  things,  and 

his  personal  experience  to  guide  him, — the  question 

is,  could  he,  in  this  case,  of  himself  have  come  to 

believe  that  the  death  of  a  beast  could  in  any  way 

influence  or  bear  any  possible  relation  to,  the  mind  of 

his  God  ?     Suppose  the  sense  of  sin  in  his  soul  ever 

so  deep,  suppose  his  fear  of  punishment  and  his 

dread  of  divine  anger  ever  so  overwhelming,  could 

he  of  himself  have  imagined  that  God  would  be 

appeased  towards  him,  and  would  find  satisfaction  in 

the  sufferings  of  an  innocent  and  helpless  animal? 

It  seems  impossible  to  think  so.     What  dictate  of 

natural  conscience,  what  principle  of  common  equity, 

what  law  of  the  understanding,  what  process  of  fair 

reasoning  could  have  led  him  to  such  a  conclusion  ? 

Not  one.     From  what  premises  could  he  argue,  on 

what  grounds  could  he  rest  his  belief  ?     There  were 

none.     Even  supposing  that  his  notions  of  God  were 

of  the   grossest  kind,  supposing  that  he  imagined 

God  to  be  altogether  such  an  one  as  himself,  or 

worse  than  himself,  an  imj)lacable,  revengeful  Being, 

who  delighted  in  blood  and  death  and  revelled  in  the 

0 


210  SACRIFICE. 


agonies  of  His  creatures,  this  of  itself  would  be 
enough  to  convince  him  that  such  a  Being  could 
never  be  contented  with  the  sufferings  of  a  mere 
animal,  substituted  for  the  far  acuter  and  deeper 
sufferings  of  a  rational  man.  A  divine  suggestion  to 
the  human  soul,  but  only  this,  solves  all  the  diffi- 
culties and  perfectly  meets  all  the  circumstances  of 
the  case.  It  seems  reasonable  to  think  that  it  must 
have  been  in  obedience  to  God,  as  it  certainly  was  in 
solemn  acknowledgment  of  God,  that,  first  of  all, 
irrational  animals  were  slain.  But  the  rite  once 
ordained,  the  act  once  familiar,  the  notion  once 
planted  in  the  mind,  all  thereafter  is  comparatively 
plain.  The  sacrifice  of  animal  life  w^ould  become 
a  part  of  the  understood,  accepted,  common  know- 
ledge of  mankind,  would  be  preserved  and  extended, 
as  a  tradition,  where  the  fact  of  its  origin  was 
unknown,  and  would  gather  around  itself,  in  the 
progress  of  time,  all  manner  of  ideas,  false  and  true, 
according  to  the  character  and  tendencies  of  indivi- 
duals, nations,  and  ages. 

The  first  mention  of  sacrifice  in  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures almost  compels  the  belief,  that  it  was  by  no 
means  the  first  time  that  such  a  thing  had  taken 
place.  "  Abel  brought  of  the  firstlings  of  his  flock, 
and  of  the  fat  thereof.  And  the  Lord  had  respect 
unto  Abel  and  to  liis  offering."  No  special  atten- 
tion is  drawn  to  the  fact,  as  if  it  were  altogether 


SACRIFICE.  211 


novel  and  extraordinary.  It  is  simply  named  as 
a  thing  quite  understood  and  perfectly  usual.  So 
far  as  the  testimony  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  goes, 
animal  sacrifice  certainly  dates  not  long  after  the 
creation  of  man.  There  is  a  kind  of  traditionary, 
hereditary  notion,  widely  prevalent,  to  the  effect 
that  the  food  of  primitive  man  was  vegetable,  and 
that  after  the  apostasy  for  the  first  time  animal 
food  was  used.  Let  no  undue  weight  be  attached 
to  this  notion.  It  may  have  no  authority  at  all. 
But  quite  apart  from  this,  it  is  in  itself  highly  pro- 
bable, we  venture  to  think  it  all  but  certain,  that 
it  was  by  divine  suggestion,  first  of  all,  that  animal 
life  was  taken,  in  order  that  animal  substance 
might  be  used  for  human  food.  It  needed  such  a 
suggestion,  first,  to  justify  man  in  destroying  animal 
life,  and,  second,  to  prompt  him  to  this  act.  The 
taking  of  life,  in  any  case,  on  any  ground,  is  revolt- 
ing and  abhorrent  to  nature.  We  shrink  from  it, 
we  shudder  at  the  sight  of  it.  If  it  be  a  necessity, 
it  is  a  barbarous  and  brutal  necessity,  and  no 
ordinary  force  is  required  to  overcome  that  deep 
repugnance  to  it,  with  which  all  but  very  coarse 
natures  are  possessed.  It  is  quite  true  that  our 
instincts  and  our  structure,  beyond  doubt,  place  us 
in  the  order  of  carnivorous  animals.  But  let  us 
carefully  mark  how  much  this  involves.  "We  are 
formed  by  nature  to  be  flesh-eaters ;  but  whose  flesh 


212  SACRIFICE. 


— wLetlier  that  of  oiir  own  race,  or  tliat  of  inferior 
creatures — is  a  point  wholly  undetermined  by  our 
structure.  So  far  as  structure  is  concerned,  we  have 
precisely  the  same  right,  neither  less  nor  more,  to 
feed  upon  one  another  as  to  take  the  life  of  any 
animal,  in  order  to  appease  our  fleshly  instincts. 
Might  is  not  right,  and  all  our  appetites  must  be 
under  law  to  reason  and  to  God.  Hence  we  argue 
that  the  Being  who  formed  our  nature.  Himself  im- 
pelled to  the  legitimate  method  of  preserving  it,  and 
appointed  for  our  needs  the  death  of  the  inferior 
tribes.  At  the  same  time,  we  cannot  doubt  that  a 
deeper  lesson,  in  harmony  with  the  great  facts  of 
the  creation,  the  redemption  and  the  ultimate  per- 
fection of  the  universe,  was  involved — a  lesson  reach- 
ing to  the  inner,  spiritual  nature,  and  suggesting 
that  life  is  sustained  only  by  the  sacrifice  of  life. 
All  life,  vegetable  as  well  as  animal,  lives  only  hy  the 
death  of  other  forms  of  being.  Truest  of  all,  the 
higher  life  thrives  by  the  sacrifice  of  the  lower  outer 
life.  Man  rises  to  God,  only  out  of  the  depths  of 
conflict  and  sufl'ering.  By  wholly  giving  himself  up, 
he  gains  himself.  By  simply  but  absolutely  sur- 
rendering his  will  to  the  good  will  of  God,  he  be- 
comes a  freeman  and  a  conqueror.  By  crucifying 
the  flesh,  the  spirit  is  crowned  with  true  glory.  By 
dying  he  lives. 

The  rite  of  sacrifice  was,  first  of  all,  merely  the 


SACRIFICE.  213 


divine  provision  for  human  sustenance.  But  in 
connexion  with  this,  there  is  an  additional  fact  to 
be  noted — a  manifest  and  merciful  protection  was 
thrown  around  the  lower  creation.  Animal  life  was 
exalted  into  a  sacred  thing,  and  the  taking  it  away 
was  hallowed  as  a  solemn  act  of  religion.  From 
the  first,  God  taught  His  rational  offspring  that  a 
deed  in  itself  strange  and  revolting  must  not  be  ven- 
tured heedlessly  or  wantonly — must  be  transacted 
under  a  distinct  sense  of  His  presence  and  His 
rights,  and  must  in  fact  be  nothing  less  than  a  sur- 
render back  to  Him  of  that  which  was  wholly  His — 
a  true  act  of  worship.  In  this  connexion,  it  is  re- 
markable that  through  the  whole  duration  of  the 
Mosaic  dispensation,  the  persons,  save  in  exceptional 
instances,  who  slew  the  animals  used  for  food  by  the 
Israelites  were  the  priests.  In  Leviticus  xvii.  3,  4, 
the  Israelites  are  expressly  prohibited  from  killing 
any  animal  for  food  without  first  offering  it  to  the 
Lord,  and  having  it  slain  by  the  priest,  before  the 
door  of,  the  tabernacle.  To  this  day,  we  believe, 
among  the  scattered  descendants  of  Abraham  sacred 
oflS.cers  have  to  do  with  every  animal  which  is  used 
for  food.  It  is  even  yet  more  remarkable  and  more 
decisive  that,  in  killing  animals  to  be  used  for  food, 
Mohammedans,  who  entirely  abjure  the  rite  of  sac- 
rifice, up  to  this  hour  invariably,  as  the  knife  de- 
scends to  cut  the  throat  of  the  creature,  utter  the 


214  SACRIFICE. 


words,  "  Bismillah," — "  In  the  name  of  God."  No 
good  Mussulman  will  eat  the  flesh  of  an  animal 
which  has  not  in  this  way,  as  they  judge,  been  made 
sacred  to  God.  The  false  and  corrupt  religious 
ideas,  too  often  associated  with  the  rite  of  sacrifice, 
render  it  hard,  if  not  impossible,  to  reconcile  it  with 
just  conceptions  of  the  Great  Being.  But  so  far  as 
we  have  gone  in  these  hints  as  to  its  primitive 
meaning  and  design,  it  is  impossible  not  to  regard 
it  as  a  provision  altogether  worthy  of  God — most 
merciful  and  most  wise — unspeakably  more  merciful 
and  more  wise  than  the  very  best  of  our  existing 
Christian  civilisations  are  able  to  exhibit. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  the  notion  of  man  and 
God  eating  together,  in  token  of  reconciliation,  was 
involved  in  the  primitive  institution  of  sacrifice. 
The  form  of  the  altar,  literally  a  raised  table,  and 
the  fact  that  the  priests  (and  the  offerers  at  their 
own  homes)  partook  of  the  animals  sacrificed,  are 
not  without  weight.  The  mode  in  which  federal 
treaties  or  compacts  were  made  and  confirmed  in 
ancient  times  has,  perhaps,  greater  force  still.  "When 
a  disagreement  had  been  made  up,  or  when  a  com- 
pact or  covenant  was  entered  into,  the  transaction 
was  hallowed  by  sacrifice.  An  animal  was  slain, 
and  divided  into  two  portions;  and  the  contracting 
parties  passed  between  the  divided  sacrifice,  as  much 
as  to  say,  "  Let  us  no  more  henceforth  be  divided ;" 


SACRIFICE.  215 


or,  "  So  be  it  done  to  us,  if  we  violate  this  covenant." 
Thereafter  they  sat  down  together,  and  feasted  on 
the  sacrifice.  No  unprejudiced  inquirer  can  fail  to 
learn  here,  that  the  taking  of  animal  life  was  held  to 
be  a  sacred  thing,  and  to  make  sacred,  to  some  ex- 
tent, whatever  was  connected  with  it.  It  is  plain, 
also,  that  the  God  to  whom  life  belongs  was  here  in- 
voked to  witness  and  to  sanction  what  was  transacted. 
But  beyond  this,  all  is  unreal  and  contradictory.  It 
was  not  true  that  God  did  eat  with  men,  and  took 
His  place  along  with  them  at  the  altar.  There  is 
nothing  to  show  that  they  entertained  this  notion; 
and  if  they  did,  it  was  not  only  a  mere  fancy,  but  a 
gross  and  coarse,  a  degrading  and  dishonouring  fancy. 
The  natural  and  rational  analysis  of  the  primitive 
meaning  of  sacrifice  guides  us  to  one  other,  but  only 
to  one  other  fact,  in  addition  to  the  two  already  pro- 
duced— the  fact  of  human  sin.  Man  had  forfeited 
his  life.  Every  being  who  sins  forfeits  his  right  to 
live.  In  the  very  act  of  sin  he  inflicts  a  death  upon 
himself,  and  strikes  a  mortal  blow  at  his  spiritual 
nature.  It  was  not  unworthy  of  God,  but  most 
worthy,  to  furnish,  in  the  very  mode  in  which  even 
the  outer  life  of  his  rational  creatures  was  preserved, 
a  perpetual,  material  symbol  of  the  deeper  evil  which 
they  had  brought  upon  themselves,  and  to  extort 
from  them  a  silent,  but  significant  confession  of  sin. 
The  teaching  of  the  slain  animal  from  the  first,  and, 


216 


SACRIFICE, 


later  still,  of  the  altar,  was  that  human  life  was  for- 
feited life,  life  forfeited  by  transgression. 

Few  things  are  now  less  thought  of,  because  so 
common,  than  the  death  of  animals,  for  the  purposes 
^of  daily  subsistence.  But  it  was  not  so  from  the 
beginning.  That  deed,  which,  in  token  of  disgust, 
we  call  butchery,  had  at  first  a  very  hallowed  mean- 
ing. It  was  done  in  the  name  and  by  the  command 
of  God,  and  was  understood  to  be  a  solemn  act 
of  acknowledgment  and  of  reverent  worship.  It 
taught  the  sacredness  of  all  life,  and  was  a  surrender 
back  to  God  of  what  was  supremely  His — a  virtual 
self-surrender  on  the  part  of  the  offerer.  Last  of  all, 
it  distinctly  involved  a  silent  confession  of  depend- 
ence and  of  sin.  In  itself,  merely,  the  act  had  no 
sacredness,  it  became  sacred  because  it  was  the 
ordained  symbol  of  that  spiritual  acknowledgment 
which  God  required  from  His  rational  creatures. 
But  the  material  act  was  far  easier  than  this  mental 
exercise.  One  of  the  deepest  tendencies  of  men,  in 
the  sphere  of  religion,  is  to  substitute  the  outward 
for  the  inw^ard,  to  put  religious  rites  in  the  place  of 
religious  convictions  and  feelings.  Too  often,  the 
abundant  care  and  pains  bestowed  on  outward  forms, 
are  only  the  sure  sign  how  utterly  we  have  lost  the 
inward  spirit  of  worship  to  which  alone  God  looks. 
It  is  not  hard  to  conceive  how  men  learned  to  count 
the   mere  rite  of  sacrifice,  apart  from  its  inward 


SACRIFICE.  217 


meaning,  a  thing  good  and  holy  in  itself  and  pleas- 
ing to  God,  and  how  they  laboured,  in  their  own 
perverse  way,  to  render  the  rite  more  imposing  and 
more  awful.  It  is  not  wonderful  that  in  successive 
ages,  utterly  false  ideas  were  so  crowded  around  it, 
as  to  bury  out  of  sight  the  divine  simplicity.  As  the 
degeneration  of  the  human  races  deepened,  and  as 
men's  thoughts  of  God  became  more  dishonouring 
and  more  gross,  we  have  no  difficulty  in  imagining 
how  they  descended  lower  and  ever  lower  still,  until 
at  last  they  believed  that  the  more  numerous  and  the 
more  revolting  the  sacrifices  which  they  brought  to 
the  altar,  the  more  likely  they  were  to  please  the 
Great  Being.  Even  in  the  age  of  the  patriarch 
Abraham,  the  inhabitants  of  Canaan  had  sunk  into 
the  most  fearful  debasement,  and  entertained  the 
most  revolting  notions  of  the  Supreme.  He  was 
transformed  in  their  conceptions  into  a  monster  of 
cruelty,  whose  anger  could  be  appeased  only  by  a 
horrible  and  hideous  worship,  and  to  whose  implac- 
able revenge  they  must  offer  up  not  animal  only  but 
human  life,  and  even  the  life  of  their  own  offspring. i 
We  turn  from  the  abuses  and  corruptions  of  a 
sacred  ordinance  to  its  solemn  restoration  and  re- 
enactment  by  its  divine  Author. 

1  The  reasonings  in  the  chapter  following  are  quite  apart  from 
the  view  of  sacrifice  presented  in  this  chapter,  and  rest,  as  will  be 
perceived,  on  their  own  independent  grounds. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

MOSAIC    ECONOMY. 

Section  First. — Its  Chief  Characteristic. 

Section  Second.— Its  True  Meaning  and  Interpretation. 


SECTION  FIRST — CHIEF  CHARACTERISTIC   OF  THE 
MOSAIC  ECONOMY. 

Religion  of  Blood — Endless  Sacrifices — Rite  Simplified  and  Purified 
— Appeal  through  Senses  to  Soul — Two  Ideas — Human  Sus- 
tenance and  Divine  Worship — Paschal  Lamb,  a  Supper — Also, 
Act  of  Worship — No  Idea  of  Expiation — How  Blood,  Atone- 
ment for  Soul — Blood  and  Fat,  God's  Portion — Rest  for  Food 
— Kaphar,    iXdcr/co/iai,    Atonement — Not     Expiation — Proof 


THEKE  is  a  painful  recoil  in  many  minds,  from 
more  than  one  aspect  of  the  Jewish  institutions, 
and  of  the  entire  dispensation  founded  upon  them. 
The  chief  cause  of  offence  is  the  place  to  which  the 
rite  of  sacrifice  is  exalted,  being  not  simply  or 
occasionally  recognised  along  with  other  and  more 
spiritual  acts  of  worship,  but  constituting  the 
grand,  pervading,  and  perpetual  characteristic  of  the 
economy.  Daily,  weekly,  monthly,  yearly,  on  innu- 
merable special  occasions,  and  for  innumerable 
personal,  domestic,  social,  private,  and"  national 
causes,  innocent  animals  were  slain  on  the  altar  of 
Jehovah.      No   ordinary  arithmetic   could   compute 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 


the  sacrifices,  of  all  kinds,  which  were  offered  up,  in 
whole  or  in  part,  in  the  tabernacle  first  and  after- 
wards in  the  temple.  Such  a  narrative  as  that  of 
the  first  dedication  of  the  temple  in  Jerusalem,  when 
Solomon  and  all  Israel  with  him  off'ered  sacrifice 
before  the  Lord,  22,000  oxen  and  120,000  sheep, 
bears  no  distant  affinity,  it  is  maintained,  in  this 
particular  feature  to  a  Pagan  festival. 

It  were  easy,  were  it  here  needful,  to  exhibit  the 
widest  distinction  between  Judaism  and  all  the  forms 
of  ancient  idolatry.  None  of  the  revolting  impurities 
of  Gentile  worship,  and  none  of  the  abominations  of 
human  sacrifice,  find  a  place  in  the  law  of  Moses. 
And  then,  instead  of  sacrifices  to  many  gods,  the 
many  sacrifices  were  all  offered  to  the  One  only  God, 
the  true  object  of  worship.  Even  the  number,  the 
modes,  and  the  exact  times  of  holy  offerings  were 
fitted  to  act  with  beneficial  power,  on  an  undis- 
ciplined multitude,  to  train  them  to  habits  of  order 
and  of  thoughtful  care,  and  to  inspire  them  with 
the  idea  of  the  constancy,  the  awe,  and  the  un- 
feigned consecration  which  were  demanded  in  divine 
worship.  But  when  all  this  and  much  more  has 
been  advanced,  the  question  is  unanswered,  "  How 
can  we  .connect  the  living  God  with  a  religion  of 
blood  ?  "  for  hour  by  hour  of  every  day,  the  altar  of 
Jehovah  streamed  and  reeked  with  blood. 

It  is  not  favourable  to  modern  ideas,  that  some 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  223 

of  the  wisest  and  most  admired  of  the  early  Chris- 
tian fathers  vindicated  the  Mosaic  institutions,  by- 
reference  to  the  religious  rites  of  Egypt  and  other 
ancient  nations.  Had  they,  in  that  day,  sympathised 
with  the  later  scholastic  mode  of  interpreting  the 
rite  of  sacrifice,  their  course  must  have  been  the 
very  opposite.  After  the  manner  of  more  modern 
apologists,  they  had  only  to  show  that  Moses  was 
a, type  of  Christ,  that  the  Jewish  was  a  prefiguration 
of  the  latter  Christian  dispensation,  and  that  the 
legal  sacrifices  were  meant  to  prepare  the  world  for 
the  true  sacrifice  of  Christ.  This  would  very  readily 
and  legitimately  have  accounted  for  whatever  seems 
repulsive  in  the  ancient  ritual.  But  not  a  word  to 
this  effect,  do  these  primitive  disciples  of  our  Lord 
utter.  Instead  of  any  such  reasoning,  they  point 
to  the  condition  of  the  whole  Gentile  world,  and 
especially  to  the  bloody  altars  of  Egypt,  with  which 
the  Israelites  had  long  been  familiar,  and  in  services 
like  to  which  they  had  long  been  trained.  Hence 
they  argued  that  the  institution  of  sacrifice  by  Moses 
was  an  inevitable  necessity,  and  that  had  it  not  been 
sanctioned,  as  it  was,  by  God,  and  placed  under 
special  and  exact  laws,  it  would  certainly  have  been 
introduced  by  the  Israelites  themselves,  indepen- 
dently of  divine  sanction.  It  is  strange  but  true. 
The  ancient.  Christian  argument  involved  this  most 
dishonouring  conception — that  God  was  obliged  to 


224  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 

succumb  to  a  necessity,  and  was  able  only  to  regulate 
and  modify  what  it  was  impossible  for  Him  to  prevent. 

The  original  meaning  of  the  rite  of  sacrifice,  if  we 
have  correctly  interpreted  it,  conducts  us  without 
recoil,  and  by  an  obvious  and  easy  process  of 
thought,  to  all  the  distinguishing  services  of  Juda- 
ism. That  rite  was  first  of  all  the  divine  provision 
for  human  sustenance ;  but  it  was  a  sacred  rite  from 
the  beginning,  and  was  ordained  and  understood 
to  be  a  true  act  of  worship — a  distinct  acknowledg- 
ment of  God,  and  a  virtual  self-surrender  to  Him. 
It  was  the  primitive,  universal  form  of  divine  wor- 
ship— the  divinely-appointed  mode  in  which  men 
expressed  outwardly  their  reverent  recognition  of 
the  Great  Creator.  So  far  from  yielding  to  a  ne- 
cessity, and  sanctioning  what  He  had  never  or- 
dained, but  only  winked  at,  God,  in  the  dispensation 
of  Moses,  simply  restored  and  re-enacted,  with  great 
solemnity.  His  own  significant  ordinance.  Away 
from  all  which  the  ignorance,  and  the  errors,  and 
the  fears  of  men  had  originated.  He  reconnected 
the  taking  of  animal  life  with  the  presence  and  the 
rights  of  the  unseen  Life-giver,  and  reclaimed,  in  this 
significant  act,  the  homage  and  the  love  of  the 
human  soul. 

It  is  important  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  entire 
ancient  economy  was  an  appeal  directed,  first  of  all, 
to  the  senses  of  the  Israelites,  ultimately  to  their 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  225 

judgment  and  conscience ;  but  first,  through  the 
medium  of  strong  impressions  made  on  their  animal 
nature.  The  reason  is  manifest ;  it  was  not  possible, 
by  any  other  means,  to  have  addressed  an  effective 
appeal  to  such  a  people,  as  the  Israelites  were,  at 
this  period  of  their  history,  a  nation  of  slaves, 
emasculated  and  ground  down  by  two  centuries  of 
the  most  galling  bondage — a  savage,  ignorant,  and 
unintelligent  multitude.  The  barbaric  gorgeousness 
of  the  tabernacle,  with  its  coverings,  and  ornaments, 
and  colourings ;  the  outer  court ;  the  holy  place  and 
the  holy  of  holies ;  the  dresses  of  the  priest  and  of 
the  high  priest ;  the  altars  of  sacrifice  and  of  incense ; 
the  gold  and  silver  vessels  of  the  sanctuary ;  the 
numberless  holy  days  and  festivals ;  the  minute, 
punctilious,  rigorous  details  ;  the  washings,  and 
cleansings,  and  changings  of  robes ;  the  times,  the 
modes,  and  all  the  petty  arrangements  of  cere- 
monies and  services,  and  the  never-ending  offerings 
on  all  sorts  of  occasions  and  for  all  sorts  of  purposes, 
— had  one  manifest  design,  to  affect  the  senses  of 
the  people,  and  through  their  senses  to  convey  to 
their  minds,  with  extraordinary  impressiveness,  the 
thought  of  God — a  God  ever  near  to  them,  ever 
observant  of  them,  and  whose  watchfulness  was  un- 
ceasing and  minute. 

But  if  the  rite  of  sacrifice,  like  the  entire  dispen- 
sation to  which  it  belonged,  addressed  the  outward 


226  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 

senses,  that  rite  had  in  itself  a  wonderful  simplicity 
and  directness  of  meaning,  such  as  the  humblest 
might  at  once  comprehend.  And  this  simplicity 
and  directness  were  restored,  preserved,  and  even 
intensified  by  the  peculiar  institutions  of  the  ritual 
law  of  Moses.  The  sacrificial  ordinance — cleared 
from  all  the  pagan  ideas  which  had  been  imported 
into  it,  and  from  all  the  pagan  abominations  which 
had  been  associated  with  it — was  made  once  more, 
what  it  had  been  at  the  first,  simply  the  outward 
mode,  whereby  men  gave  token  of  their  reverence 
and  their  homage,  whilst  at  the  same  time  and  by 
the  same  act,  God  mercifully  provided  for  them  the 
means  of  subsistence. 

The  first  mention  of  sacrifice  in  the  history  of  the 
Jews,  as  a  people,  furnishes  a  significant,  almost 
startling,  confirmation  of  this  view.  The  Paschal 
lamb  formed  the  supper  of  that  night  when  they 
were  driven  out  of  Egypt.  It  was  eaten  with  bread 
hastily  and  imperfectly  prepared,  and  with  bitter 
herbs,  and  amidst  other  signs  of  the  perilous  crisis 
they  had  reached.  But  it  was  eaten,  and  it  supplied 
a  meal  of  animal  food  very  needful  and  strengthen- 
ing for  the  anxious  journey  they  were  about  to  un- 
dertake. At  the  same  time,  the  slaying  of  the 
lamb,  as  in  all  cases,  was  in  the  name  and  by  the 
command  of  God — it  was  essentially  a  sacred  rite, 
an  act  of  homage  and   submission  to  the  unseen 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  227 

Jehovali,  under  whose  protection  they  were  to  go 
forth  from  Egypt,  and  who,  on  that  memorable 
night,  was  to  shield  them  from  the  dire  calamity 
soon  to  come  down  on  the  inhabitants  of  the  land. 
It  is  only  reasonable  to  conjecture  that  the  religious 
system  afterwards  established  by  divine  command 
may  possibly  be  found  to  be  in  strict  harmony  with 
this  original  fact.  The  two  ideas  at  the  first  con- 
joined— human  sustenance  and  divine  worship — 
were  certainly  embodied  in  the  sacrifices  under  the 
law  of  Moses.  The  whole  burnt-offering,  symbolic 
of  extraordinary  and  entire  consecration  to  God, 
had  its  fitting  place  in  that  law  ;  but  usually,  gener- 
ally, whilst  in  every  proper  sacrifice,  a  certain  part 
was  consumed  on  the  altar,  in  token  of  surrender  to 
God,  the  remainder  was  the  food  either  of  the 
priests  or  of  the  ofi'erers  themselves.  On  this  prin- 
ciple, a  consistent  and  honourable  interpretation  is 
supplied  of  the  fact  already  referred  to  in  connexion 
with  the  dedication  of  the  temple  in  Jerusalem,  when 
22,000  oxen  and  120,000  sheep  were  sacrificed.  It 
was  no  outburst  of  brutal  savageism,  and  no  mere 
cruel  and  wicked  waste  of  animal  life.  The  occasion 
was  one  of  extraordinary  thanksgiving  and  rejoicing 
— of  solemn  worship,  indeed,  but  also  of  feasting  and 
of  national  exhilaration.  "While  God  was  reverently 
acknowledged,  and  whilst  the  rich  celebrated  a  joy- 
ous holiday,  hundreds  and  thousands  of  the  poorer^ 


228  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 

Israelites,  who  had  no  sacrifice  to  olFer,  were  fur- 
nished with  the  means  both  of  worship  and  of  feast- 
ing— the  means  of  adoring  their  God,  and  of  making 
glad  in  the  joy  of  their  country. 

The  sacred  side  of  the  rite  of  sacrifice,  apart  from 
its  secular  uses,  was  unambiguous  and  intelligible — 
reverent  acknowledgment  of  God,  and  return  and 
self-surrender  to  Him.  But  was  this  the  entire  sig- 
nificance of  so  strange  a  rite  ?  That  is  the  question 
which  deserves  an  extended  and  explicit  reply.  The 
fact  must  not  be  concealed,  that  long  before  the 
time  of  Moses,  among  the  Gentile  peoples  around,  as 
in  heathen  nations  at  this  hour,  a  larger  and  very 
different  conception  was  entertained.  Urged  by  their 
fears,  and  judging  by  a  human  standard,  and  by 
human  experiences,  men  early  dreamed  of  propitiat- 
ing divine  favour,  and  appeasing  divine  anger,  and 
of  prevailing  on  the  gods  either  to  avert  evil,  or 
to  bestow  some  desired  benefit.  To  them  Baal  or 
Ammon  or  Moloch  or  Jupiter  were  monster  exag- 
gerations of  human  passions  and  vices ;  and  hence, 
in  the  worship  of  such  deities,  they  shed  blood  in 
torrents,  perpetrated  horrible  cruelties,  cut  them- 
selves with  knives  and  sacrificed  their  fellow-crea- 
tures, and  even  their  own  children,  on  the  altar.  Their 
idea  was  to  make  up,  somehow,  for  the  wrongs  they 
had  done,  to  glut  and  satiate  the  revenge,  of  which 
they  supposed  themselves  to  be  the  objects,  or  to 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  229 

work  upon  the  stern  and  cruel  nature  of  their  gods, 
so  as  to  secure  some  coveted  favour.  But  it  would 
require  more  than  common  evidence  to  sustain  the 
belief  that  these  Pagan  ideas  in  any  degree  tainted 
the  divine  economy  of  the  Old  Testament.  It  is 
not,  indeed,  impossible,  or  even  improbable,  that 
among  the  Jewish  people  something  of  the  pagan 
element  may  have  found  its  way.  That  element,  as 
is  shown  in  its  early  and  wide  development,  must 
have  much  in  it  which  is  congenial  with  the  ignor- 
ance and  the  gross  ideas,  and,  especially,  the  fears 
of  the  human  soul.  Men  are  slow  to  believe  that 
God's  thoughts  are  immeasurably  high  above  their 
thoughts,  and  His  ways  immeasurably  high  above 
their  wa^^  s,  slow  to  believe  that  His  mercy  reacheth 
to  the  clouds,  and  that  He  delighteth  to  pardon. 
But  they  do  naturally,  though  most  perversely,  judge 
of  the  Most  High  by  themselves,  and  by  themselves 
even  in  their  worst  aspects — as  furious,  revengeful, 
and  implacable.  They  do  imagine  that,  like  them- 
selves. He  also  must  hunger  for  satisfaction,  must 
thirst  for  blood,  must  burn  to  wreak  His  vengeance. 
It  is  possible — though  any  distinct  evidence  of  such 
a  thing  is  altogether  wanting — that  this  Pagan  con- 
dition of  thought  and  of  heart  may  have  more  or 
less  infected  the  Jewish  people.  But  that  it  was 
ever  sanctioned,  or  even  indirectly  countenanced,  by 
their  religious  institutions,  must  be  resolutely  denied. 


230  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 

When  the  Jew  brought  his  sacrifice  to  the  altar,  two 
distinct  ideas  were  presented  to  his  mind.  On  the 
one  hand,  here  was  a  merciful  divine  provision  for 
his  animal  life;  on  the  other  hand,  the  God,  who 
had  made  this  provision,  was  here  laying  claim  to 
the  reverence  and  the  love  of  his  heart,  and  demand- 
ing his  willing  return  and  self-surrender.  Every 
fresh  offering  was  meant  to  be  a  fresh  response  to 
the  divine  claims,  a  new  and  sacred  acknowledgment 
on  his  part,  a  new  return  and  self-surrender  to  his 
God.  The  occasions  of  sacrifice  were  endless;  but 
throughout  them  all,  in  every  instance,  the  one  mean- 
ing was  simply  this,  renewed  and  reverent  acknow- 
ledgment of  God.  He  was  taught  that  the  grand 
reality,  to  be  recognised  in  every  change  of  circum- 
stances, and  with  every  passing  hour,  was  God.  The 
transparent  purpose  of  the  institution  under  which 
he  lived  was  to  encompass  him  with  a  holy  rcA^erence 
of  God,  to  keep  alive  in  him  a  constant  sense  of  God's 
presence  and  God's  rights,  and  to  convince  him  that 
he  could  be  happy  and  safe  and  right  only  in  God, 
in  a  cordial  return  and  surrender  to  Him. 

But  the  question  is  repeated,  Was  there  no  more 
than  this  involved  in  so  extraordinary  a  rite  ?  Are 
we  not  compelled  to  think  that  there  must  have 
been  much  more  than  this  ?  How,  for  example,  are 
we  to  account  for  the  frequent  mention  of  sacrificial 
blood  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  for  the  constant 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  231 

and  reverent  use  which  was  made  of  it?  The 
writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  states  the  simple 
fact  when  he  says  that  "  almost  all  things  were  by 
the  law  purged  with  blood."  "  And  that  without 
shedding  of  blood  is  no  remission."  The  sprinkling 
of  blood  was  one  of  the  most  sacred  of  all  the  rites 
connected  with  sacrifice.  It  was  performed  always 
towards  the  mercy-seat,  sometimes  in  the  outer  court, 
sometimes  in  the  holy  place,  sometimes  in  both, 
and  once  a  year  in  the  holy  of  holies.  Blood  was 
sprinkled  on  the  person,  on  the  garments,  and  on  the 
dwelling.  The  sacred  vessels  and  furniture  of  the 
tabernacle  were  purified  with  blood.  When  the 
throat  of  the  sacrifice  was  cut,  the  blood  was  caught 
in  a  vessel,  and  with  his  fingers  the  priest  touched 
with  blood  the  horns  and  sometimes  the  sides  of  the 
altar,  the  rest  being  poured  out  at  the  bottom  of  the 
altar,  from  which,  through  two  openings,  it  was  con- 
ducted into  the  brook  Kedron.  On  the  great  day  of 
atonement,  the  high  priest  with  unusual  solemnity 
carried  the  blood  of  the  sacrifice  into  the  holy  of 
holies,  and  sprinkled  it  reverently  before  the  mercy- 
seat  and  on  the  mercy-seat. 

A  peculiar  significance  is  added  to  all  these  facts, 
by  the  divine  announcement  in  Lev.  xvii.  10,  11. 
"Whatsoever  man  there  be  of  the  house  of  Israel,  or 
of  the  strangers  that  sojourn  among  you,  that  eateth 
any  manner  of  blood;  I  wiU  even  set  my  face  against 


232  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 

that  soul  that  eateth  blood,  and  will  cut  him  off  from 
among  his  people.  For  the  life  of  the  flesh  is  in  the 
blood,  and  I  have  given  it  to  you  upon  the  altar,  to 
make  an  atonement  for  your  souls  (lives)  ;  for  it 
is  the  blood  that  maketh  an  atonement  for  the  soul," 
(life.)  Physiological  and  sanitary  reasons  were 
doubtless  combined  with  others  of  a  purely  sacred 
kind,  in  this  promulgation  of  the  mind  of  God  ;  but 
the  sacred  ground  is  emphatic  and  distinct :  "it 
is  the  blood  that  maketh  an  atonement  for  the 
soul,"  (life.)  Without  determining  at  present  the 
exact  sense  of  the  word  "  atonement,"  this  much  is 
evident,  that  whatever  value,  whatever  acknowledg- 
ment of  God  there  was  in  the  sacrifice  proper,  was 
owing  simply  and  wholly  to  the  life-blood  being 
shed.  There  was  no  sacrifice  in  the  highest  sense 
without  this,  and  a  strong  confirmation  is  here 
incidentally  furnished  of  the  interpretation  which  has 
been  given  of  the  sacrificial  rite,  in  its  primitive  and 
natural  meaning.  We  found  that  it  was  animal  life 
in  that  rite,  which  was  made  a  sacred  thing  by  God, 
and  it  was  the  taking  and  offering  up  of  the  life,  not 
the  wounding  or  maiming  of  an  animal,  but  the 
taking  of  the  life,  in  which  consisted  the  act  of 
worship.  The  acknowledgment  of  God  in  the 
slaying  of  an  animal  was  the  acknowledgment  of 
the  Life-giver,  and  the  act  of  worship  was  recogni- 
tion of  His  rights  and  surrender  back  to  Him  of  that 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  233 

which  was  supremely  His,  involving  as  it  did  a 
virtual  self -surrender  on  the  part  of  the  offerer. 
The  presentation  and  sprinkling  of  the  blood  were 
thus  indispensable  ;  and  as  the  symbol  of  life  taken, 
and  of  life  surrendered,  to  the  Life-giver,  the  blood 
had  a  meaning  which  did  not  belong  to  anything 
else,  whilst,  in  itself  merely,  it  was  no  more  sacred 
than  any  other  part  of  the  sacrifice,  and  had  no 
more  efficacy  or  power.  To  set  our  minds  com- 
pletely at  rest  on  this  head,  we  have  only  to  turn 
to  another  passage  in  the  book  of  Leviticus,  chap, 
vii.  23,  25 — "  Speak  unto  the  children  of  Israel, 
saying,  Ye  shall  eat  no  manner  of  fat,  of  ox,  or 
of  sheep,  or  of  goat.  For  whosoever  eateth  the  fat 
of  the  beast,  of  which  men  offer  an  offering  made 
by  fire  unto  the  Lord,  even  the  soul  that  eateth  it 
shall  be  cut  off  from  his  people."  The  plain  fact 
is  this,  in  every  proper  sacrifice,  two  things  were 
reserved  sacred  to  God,  the  blood  and  the  fat,  but 
the  one  no  more  than  the  other — the  blood  being 
sprinkled  and  poured  out.  and  the  fat  being  con- 
sumed on  the  altar.  The  same  solemn  prohibition 
against  eating  applied  to  both  alike,  and  the  same 
penalty  of  death  was  attached  to  the  violation  of 
the  prohibition,  in  the  one  case,  and  in  the  other 
alike.  There  were  very  strong  sanitary  reasons 
for  such  a  law  in  that  climate,  and  in  the  circum- 
stances of  the  Israelites,  but  we  have  here  simply 


234  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 

to  understand  that  the  blood  and  the  fat  were  God's 
portion  in  every  sacrifice:  all  the  rest,  that  is,  all 
which  was  really  wholesome,  being  used  for  food. 

Among  the  causes  which  have  operated  in  identi- 
fying the  Jewish  law  with  pagan  worship  one  of 
the  most  powerful  lies  in  that  word  "  atonement."  It 
is  met  with  repeatedly,  especially  in  the  Pentateuch, 
creates,  it  is  imagined,  a  most  formidable  diffi- 
culty, and  involves  thoroughly  Pagan  notions  of 
the  rite  of  sacrifice.i  The  original  Hebrew  term 
(Kaphar)  affords  no  assistance  to  the  inquirer.  It 
simply  means  to  cover,  to  conceal,  to  put  aside.  A 
little  help  is  gained  from  the  Scptuagint,  the  oldest 
translation  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  a  translation 
by  Jews  of  their  native  tongue  into  a  foreign  lan- 
guage, which,  however,  they  were  in  the  constant 
habit  of  using,  and  with  which  they  were  thoroughly 
familiar.  Two  or  three  different  words  are  employed 
in  the  Septuagint  to  translate  the  Hebrew,  (Kaphar.) 
We  have,  in  several  instances,  dyid^co,  I  sanctify,  con- 
secrate, set  apart;  or,  KaOapl^o}^  KaOalpco^  I  purify, 
cleanse,  and  their  derivations;  but  in  by  far  the 
greater  number  we  find  IXdcrKOfiai,  or  its  compound, 
e^ikdaKOjjLai.      There  can  be  no  question  that,  ac- 

^  I  have  sought  to  examine,  with  all  the  care  possible  to  me,  the 
whole  of  the  passages  of  the  Old  Testament,  in  number  between 
sixty  and  seventy,  in  which  the  word  "atonement"  occurs,  and  have 
given,  in  the  succeeding  pages,  the  result  of  this  examination. 


MOSAIC   ECOI^OMY.  235 

cording  to  ordinary  Greek  usage,  the  two  latter  verbs 
convey  distinctly  the  idea  of  propitiating  or  appeas- 
ing, and  are  constantly  employed  by  Greek  writers 
to  express  the  supposed  effect  of  sacrifices  in  avert- 
ing the  anger  of  the  gods.  But  because  the  Sep- 
tuagint  translators  applied  a  common,  Pagan,  sacri- 
ficial word  to  the  Mosaic  offerings,  are  we  obliged  to 
conclude  that  therefore  they  applied  it,  in  the  Pagan 
sense  ?  It  by  no  means  necessarily  follows  ;  and 
there  are  strong  reasons  against  such  a  conclusion. 
For  example,  of^iaCjua  and  Ka9ap[t,(o  are  sometimes 
used  indifferently,  in  the  Septuagint,  with  IXdaKoixat 
and  i^lXdaKOfiai,  as  if  they  were  convertible  terms, 
though  the  two  former  certainly  contain  no  such 
sense  as  expiation  or  propitiation.  In  the  account 
of  the  most  solemn  of  all  the  Jewish  festivals,  the 
great  day  of  atonement,  given  Exod.  xxx.  10,  we 
read,  *'  Aaron  shall  make  an  atonement  upon  the 
horns  of  it,  i^lXdaerai  eir  dvro,  (shall  expiate  upon 
it,)  once  a  year  with  the  blood  of  the  sin  offer- 
ings of  atonement,  tov  KaOaptcr/jboVy  (of  cleansing:) 
once  in  the  year  shall  he  make  atonement  upon  it, 
Kd6apiei,  (cleanse  upon  it.)"  Again,  we  read  in 
Lev.  xii.  20,  "  When  he  hath  made  an  end  of  re- 
conciling (atoning)  the  holy  place,  and  the  taber- 
nacle of  the  congregation,  and  the  altar,"  &c.  The 
Hebrew  is  Kaphar,  and  IXdcrKOfiaL  is  the  verb  used 
in  the  Septuagint.     But  whatever  be  the  meaning 


236  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 

of  the  Hebrew  or  of  the  Greek  word  elsewhere,  in 
sacred  or  in  profane  writing,  at  least  in  this  passage, 
atoning,  as  that  word  is  understood  in  scholastic 
theology,  propitiating,  or  appeasing,  is  utterly  inad- 
missible. The  holy  place,  the  tabernacle,  and  the 
altar  could  commit  no  sin,  and  could  awaken  no 
divine  anger  which  needed  to  be  appeased.  Nothing 
can  be  more  clear  than  that  the  word  "atone"  cannot, 
in  this  instance,  contain  the  idea  of  expiation. 

It  is  worth  while  to  note,  in  passing,  that  the  text 
just  quoted  is  not  the  only  one  in  which  our  English 
translators  have  rendered  the  Hebrew  Kdplidr  by 
"reconcile"  instead  of  "atone."  In  at  least  five 
other  instances,  Lev.  vi.  30  and  viii.  15,  Ezek.  xlv. 
15  and  18,  and  Dan.  ix.  24,  this  rendering  occurs. 
And  it  will  be  remembered  that  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament we  found  i  that  "reconcile"  and  "reconcili- 
ation," in  twelve  out  of  thirteen  cases,  are  the  trans- 
lation of  a  Greek  term  which  undeniably  can  have 
no  reference  to  expiation,  or  satisfaction,  in  the  schol- 
astic sense.  The  impression  is  not  unreasonable, 
that  "  reconcile"  and  "  reconciliation"  may  possibly 
convey  all  that  is  essential  in  atone  and  atonement, 
as  occurring  in  the  Old  Testament.  A  more  ex- 
tended examination  of  passages,  as  we  judge,  will 
strengthen  this  impression,  and  convert  it  into  a  con- 
viction, based  on  no  slender  ground. 

1  See  chap,  v.,  p.  125. 


MOSAIC    ECONOMY.  237 

We  read  in  Excel,  xxix.  36-37,  "  Thou  shalt  offer 
every  day  a  bullock  for  a  sin-offering  of  atonement : 
and  thou  shalt  cleanse  the  altar,  when  thou  hast 
made  an  atonement  for  it,  and  thou  shalt  anoint  it, 
to  sanctify  it :  .  .  .  and  it  shall  be  an  altar  most  holy ; 
whatsoever  toucheth  the  altar  shall  be  holy."  The 
altar  was  holy,  not  morally,  but  ceremonially ;  holy, 
in  the  sense  of  sacred  ;  sanctified,  in  the  sense  of 
being  consecrated;  separated,  set  apart  to  the  service 
of  God.  So  sacred  was  it,  that  whatsoever  touched 
it  partook  of  its  sanctity,  and  only  sacred  j)ersons, 
specially  separated  to  this  end,  durst  touch  it.  But 
we  are  taught,  that  it  became  thus  sacred,  became  a 
sanctified,  hallowed,  atoned  thing,  through  sacrifice, 
— seven  days  of  sacrifice ;  and  the  question  is.  How 
could  this  be  ?  We  have  only  to  recollect,  in  answer 
to  this  question,  that  sacrifice  was  among  the  sacredest 
of  human  acts,  the  sacredest  of  all  the  outward  forms 
of  religious  worship,  and  of  all  the  outward  modes  of 
acknowledging  the  presence  and  the  rights  of  God. 
In  order  to  consecrate  anything,  to  take  it  out  of  the 
circle  of  common  things,  and  to  set  it  apart  for  God, 
the  directest  method  was  to  connect  it  with  sacrifice. 
As  for  any  idea  of  atonement  for  sin,  as  we  speak,  in 
the  case  of  the  altar,  a  piece  of  inanimate  matter ;  as 
for  any  idea  of  expiation  or  propitiation  or  satisfac- 
tion to  divine  justice,  it  is  simply  and  wholly  unin- 
telligible.    Nor  will  it  avail  to  suggest  that  the  sins 


238  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 

of  the  Israelites,  whose  offerings  were  laid  upon  the 
altar,  rendered  it  unclean.  Formally,  ritually,  it 
might  be  so,  indeed  it  certainly  was  so,  even  as  he 
who  touched,  or  was  touched,  by  anything  ceremoni- 
ally impure,  was  held  to  be  ceremonially  impure, 
(though  he  had  contracted  no  real,  moral  defilement,) 
until  by  certain  observances  he  was  again  formally 
cleansed.  Accordingly,  we  are  expressly  told  that 
the  altar  needed  to  be,  and  was,  hallowed,  atoned, 
once  a  year  "  from  the  uncleanness  of  the  children  of 
Israel.''  But  sin,  real  impurity,  moral  evil,  could 
not  insert  itself  into  the  wood  or  clay  or  stone  of 
which  the  altar  was  made,  could  not  inhere  or  adhere 
to  it,  could  not  touch  it,  could  not  affect  it  in  any  con- 
ceivable way,  or  in  tlie  slightest  degree.  Atonement, 
in  the  sense  of  expiation  of  sin,  for  the  altar,  was 
impossible ;  the  thing  was  either  unmeaning  or  most 
impious.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  easy  to  see  that 
the  very  sacred  and  extended  ceremonies  by  which 
the  altar,  and,  in  like  manner,  the  sanctuary,  and  the 
tabernacle  of  the  congregation  were  atoned,  which  in 
this  place  can  signify  only  restored  and  reconciled  to 
their  holy  uses,  had  an  important  meaning  and  an 
exalted  purpose.  In  harmony  with  the  entire  spirit 
of  a  dispensation  which  was  all  addressed  to  the 
senses  of  an  uncultivated  people,  an  impression  of 
profound  awe  was  made  on  the  Israelites.  Their 
God  was  a  holy  and  a  jealous  Grod,  and  would  toler- 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  239 

ate  no  oversight ;  His  service  was  most  sacred,  and 
everything  used  in  it  must  be  held  to  be  most  sacred, 
and  must  be  jealously  kept  perfectly  free  from  spot 
or  taint.     But  such  atonement  is  not  expiation. 

A  strong  confirmation  of  this  course  of  thought  is 
found  in  Lev.  xiv.  48-53.  The  passage  refers  to  the 
plague  of  leprosy,  in  the  walls  of  a  house,  which  is 
most  minutely  described,  by  its  various  indications. 
The  priest  is,  first  of  all,  to  make  a  careful  inspection 
of  the  place,  and  to  order  certain  steps  to  be  taken  by 
the  inmates.  These  attended  to,  "  if  the  priest  shall 
come  in,  and  look  upon  it,  and,  behold,  the  plague 
hath  not  spread  in  the  house :  then  the  priest  shall 
pronounce  the  house  clean,  because  the  plague  is 
healed.  And  he  shall  take  to  cleanse  the  house,  two 
birds,  and  cedar  wood,  and  scarlet,  and  hyssop :  and 
he  shall  kill  one  of  the  birds  in  an  earthen  vessel  over 
running  water:  and  he  shall  take  the  cedar  wood, 
and  the  hyssop,  and  the  scarlet,  and  the  living  bird, 
and  dip  them  in  the  blood  of  the  slain  bird,  and  in 
the  running  water,  and  sprinkle  the  house  seven 
times :  and  he  shall  cleanse  the  house  with  the  blood 
of  the  bird,  and  with  the  running  water,  and  with 
the  living  bird,  and  with  the  cedar  wood,  and  with 
the  hyssop,  and  with  the  scarlet :  and  he  shall  let  go 
the  living  bird  out  of  the  city  into  the  open  fields, 
and  make  an  atonement  for  the  house :  and  it  shall 
be  clean."   The  meaning  of  the  word  "atonement"  is 


240  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 

the  subject  of  our  inquiry.  It  is  no  presumption  to 
assert,  with  entire  confidence,  that  here  that  meaning 
cannot,  on  any  possible  ground,  contain  the  idea  of 
expiation,  propitiation,  satisfaction  to  divine  justice. 
And  for  a  reason  which  is  altogether  invincible,  the 
walls  of  the  house  had  committed  no  sin,  and  were 
incapable  of  moral  impurity.  But  wherefore,  then, 
is  it  asked  such  ceremonies  as  are  described  in  detail  ? 
Simply  because  such  a  house  was  an  offence  among  a 
people,  who,  in  a  sense  different  from  all  others  on 
the  face  of  the  earth,  had  been  separated  to  God,  and 
who,  not  in  their  religious  rites  only,  but  in  their 
dwellings,  their  garments,  their  food,  and  everything 
belonging  to  them,  were  to  keep  themselves  with 
jealous  care  from  all  that  was  noxious  or  unclean. 

Lev.  xiv.  1-20,  contains  the  law  relating  to  a  man 
afilicted  with  the  disease  of  leprosy — no  sin,  but  a 
merely  physical  calamity.  When  the  disease  was 
cured,  he  had  an  atonement  made  for  him  by  sacri- 
fice. After  other  details  of  observances,  we  read,  in 
verses  19,  20,  "  the  priest  shall  offer  the  sin-ofiering, 
and  make  an  atonement  for  him  that  is  to  be  cleansed 
from  his  uncleanness;  and  afterwards  he  shall  kill 
the  burnt- offering:  and  the  priest  shall  offer  the 
burnt-offering  and  the  meat  offering  upon  the  altar : 
and  the  priest  shall  make  an  atonement  for  him,  and 
he  shall  be  clean," — that  is,  he  shall  be  reinstated 
again  in  his  place  among  the  holy  people  as  one  of 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  241 

them,  one  consecrated  and  separated  to  God  like  tlie 
rest,  reconciled  and  restored  to  his  position  and  his 
privileges.  To  the  same  effect,  the  man  who  had  a 
running  issue  in  his  flesh,  when  the  disease  was  cured, 
was  atoned  by  sacrifice.  "  The  priest  shall  make  an 
atonement  for  him  before  the  Lord  for  his  issue."  l 
A  mother  after  child-birth,  and  a  woman  during  her 
separation,  were  ceremonially  unclean,  and  were 
atoned  by  sacrifice.  2  Bodily  uncleannesses  of  many 
different  kinds  are  minutely  described  in  the  books 
of  Moses ;  sins  of  ignorance  also,  which  were  not 
moral  offences  at  all,  are  set  down,  and  were  all 
atoned  by  sacrifice.  To  such  minuteness  did  the 
law  descend,  that  if  a  Jew  but  touched  any  unclean 
thing,  such  as  the  carcass  of  an  unclean  beast,  the 
priest  must  make  atonement  for  him  by  sacrifice. 3 

It  would  be  idle  to  argue  that  in  all  these  and 
similar  passages — very  numerous  as  they  are,  and 
comprising  a  large  proportion  of  all  the  instances  in 
which  the  term  under  discussion  occurs — there  can 
be  no  possible  reference  to  expiation,  as  that  word  is 
now  understood.  Where  no  sin  had  been  committed, 
atonement  for  sin,  in  the  scholastic  sense,  was  impos- 
sible. But  the  word  is  used,  and  this  proves,  if  any- 
thing can  prove,  that  the  word  does  not  necessarily 
involve  this  idea.  The  various  ordinances,  all  the 
while,  show  on  their  surface  their  own  significant 

^  Lev,  XV.  15.  2  Lev.  xii.  7,  and  xv.  30.  ^  Lev.  v.  6. 

Q 


242  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 


interpretation.  The  Israelites  were  a  consecrated,  a 
separated  people.  God  acknowledged  tliem  as  His, 
and  admitted  them  to  His  worship ;  but  they  must 
be  taught  in  the  only  effectual  way  in  which  such  a 
j)eople  could  be  taught,  that  it  was  no  light  thing  to 
draw  near  to  Him.  They  must  be  taught  that  no 
negligence,  and  not  the  slightest  defect,  could  escape 
His  eye  for  a  moment,  and  that  the  least  defilement 
affecting  their  persons,  their  dress,  their  food,  their 
houses,  or  anything  connected  with  them,  would  unfit 
them  for  His  service,  and  exclude  them  for  the  time 
from  His  house  and  His  worship.  But  so  soon  as 
the  outward  cause  of  exclusion  was  removed,  their 
God  was  ready  to  welcome  them  again,  and  it  was 
their  part  to  return  to  Him,  and  in  a  way  prescribed 
by  Himself,  to  reconcile  and  restore  themselves  to 
His  service.  Sacrifice  was  thus  the  significant  ex- 
pression of  their  desire  to  acknowledge  and  return  to 
God,  the  outward  symbol  of  their  restoration  to  His 
house  and  their  re-union  with  His  people.  The  rite 
did  nothing  to  God,  appeased  no  anger,  expiated  no 
sin,  but  it  spoke  much,  and  was  meant  to  speak  much, 
for  the  offerers.  It  testified  their  humble  acknow- 
ledgment and  their  reverent  surrender  to  God ;  but 
that  was  all. 


SECTION    SECOND  —  ITS    TRUE  MEANING    AND  INTEEPEE- 
TATION. 

Visible  Punishments  and  Eewards  in  Old  Testament — Atonement 
for  Life,  not  Soul — System  of  Discipline  and  of  Worship — Not 
Scheme  of  Salvation — Training  of  Israelite! — Old  Testament, 
Record  of  Spiritual  Truth  —  Special  Privileges  —  Salvation 
always  Common  to  World — Sacrifices  never  Ground  of  Pardon 
— "Purifying  of  Flesh" — No  More— Anticipation  of  Death  of 
Christ  Impossible — "  I,  even  I,  am  He  that  Blotteth  out/'  &c. 

IT  is  very  needful  to  pause  here  for  a  moment,  and 
to  reflect  on  the  weighty  conclusion  which  we 
have  reached.  Some  of  the  wisest  and  best  of  men 
have  accepted  the  doctrine  of  Atonement — meaning 
expiation  and  satisfaction  to  justice — because  the 
terms  of  Scripture,  as  they  judged,  expressly  con- 
tained it.  Undoubtedly  the  Pagan  sacrifices,  by  those 
who  offered  them,  were  held  to  be  expiatory ;  as 
undoubtedly  the  very  terms,  such  as  Ixda-Kofiai  and 
t.\d(7fjLo^,  which  ordinary  Greek  writers  constantly 
employed  to  express  the  expiatory  character  of  their 
sacrificial  rites,  are  applied  by  the  Septuagint  writers 
of  the  Old  Testament,  and  by  the  inspired  writers  of 


244  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 


the  New  Testament,  to  the  Mosaic  sacrifices,  or  to 
the  death  of  Christ  on  the  cross.  But  notwithstand- 
ing this,  it  has  been  distinctly  proved,  by  several  de- 
cisive examples,  (and  the  fact  will  be  confirmed  pre- 
sently by  additional  proofs,)  that  the  Hebrew  Kaphar, 
the  Greek  IXdaKOfiai,,  and  the  English  atone,  do  not, 
and  cannot,  in  the  cases  cited,  involve  the  idea  of 
expiation.  The  sacred  writers  employ  the  common. 
Pagan,  sacrificial  term — it  would  have  been  difficult, 
if  not  impossible,  for  them  to  have  done  anything 
else ;  but  they  distinctly  do  not  employ  it  to  express 
the  Pagan  idea,  but  one  essentially  and  totally  differ- 
ent from  it.  The  use  of  Kaphar,  IXdaKo/jLaL,  and 
i\d(T/jLo<;,  is  not  proof  of  the  doctrine  of  expiation  and 
satisfaction  ;  is  immeasurably  fa;*  from  this. 

There  is  another  consideration  which  must  be  taken 
into  account  in  interpreting  the  Mosaic  system.  That 
system  was  distinctively  one  of  visible  punishments 
and  rewards.  Bodily  health  and  outward  prosperity 
were  promised  to  obedience;  outward  calamity  and 
death  were  threatened  to  disobedience.  It  is  start- 
ling, how  often,  as  the  penalty  of  mere  ceremonial 
offences,  we  read  "  that  soul  shall  be  cut  off  from  his 
people."  It  will  be  remembered  that  among  the  pas- 
sages a  little  while  ago  referred  to,  we  found  that  the 
eating  of  blood  or  of  fat  was  punishable  with  death. 
In  like  manner  it  is  recorded  that  the  man  who  was 
found  gathering  sticks  on  the  Sabbath-day  was  put 


MOSAIC    ECONOMY.  245 

to  death.  And  for  all  presumptuous  sins — that  is, 
deliberate,  conscious  violation  or  neglect  of  ceremonial 
ordinances — the  punishment  was  death.  This  fact 
will  readily  explain  to  us  a  phraseology  not  infre- 
quent in  the  Old  Testament,  which  by  itself  would 
be  hopelessly  perplexing.  The  sacrifices  are  re- 
peatedly said  to  be  an  atonement  for  the  soul.  The 
people  are  commanded  to  sacrifice,  that  they  may 
make  an  atonement  for  their  souls.  But  the  Hebrew 
word  for  soul  means,  not  always,  or  even  often,  what 
we  distinguish  as  soul,  but  simply  life.  In  most, 
perhaps  all,  of  the  passages  where  the  word  is  found, 
the  true  rendering  would  be  life,  not  soul,  in  the  pre- 
sent accepted  sense.  It  was  hteraUy  true,  under  the 
Mosaic  dispensation,  that  the  health  and  life — the 
soul — of  the  people  depended  on  their  faithful  ob- 
servance of  the  outward  rites  of  their  religion.  They 
were  bound  even,  for  health's  sake  and  for  life's  sake, 
to  worship  the  Life-giver,  and  to  do  so  exactly  in 
the  prescribed  form  —  to  express  their  acknowledg- 
ment and  their  felt  dependence,  and  formally  yield 
themselves  up  to  Him. 

A  passage  in  illustration  may  be  here  quoted,i  con- 
taining an  ordinance  which  dates  from  the  very  com- 
mencement of  the  dispensation,  and  the  teaching  of 
which  is  very  unambiguous.  It  relates  to  the  num- 
bering of  the  people  at  stated  times.     "  They  shall 

1  Exod.  XXX.  11-16. 


246  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 

give  every  man  a  ransom  for  his  soul  (his  life)  unto 
the  Lord,  when  thou  numberest  them."  Half  a 
shekel  was  the  sum  to  be  given  by  rich  and  poor 
alike,  neither  more  nor  less,  "  an  offering  unto  the 
Lord."  It  is  added,  "  to  make  an  atonement  for 
your  souls  (lives.)  And  thou  shalt  take  the  atone- 
ment money  of  the  children  of  Israel,  and  shall 
appoint  it  for  the  service  of  the  tabernacle  of  the 
congregation,  that  it  may  be  a  memorial  unto  the 
children  of  Israel  before  the  Lord,  to  make  an  atone- 
ment for  your  souls"  (lives.)  In  this  passage  that 
efficacy  which  is  conceived  to  belong  exclusively  to 
bloody  sacrifices,  is  connected  with  a  payment  in 
money.  Unquestionably  there  was  no  expiatory,  pro- 
pitiatory offering  here,  no  satisfaction  to  divine  jus- 
tice, as  we  speak;  but  there  was,  it  is  explicitly 
declared,  a  real  atonement ;  showing,  if  language  has 
a  meaning,  that  the  word  "  atonement"  in  the  Old 
Testament  cannot  in  this  instance  signify  what  we 
have  supposed  it  must  always  signify,  but  must  mean, 
simply,  reverent  acknowledgment  of  God — an  expres- 
sion of  submission,  of  self-surrender,  and  of  cordial 
reconciliation  to  Him. 

A  passage  very  similar  to  the  last,  and  as  decisive 
in  its  teaching,  will  be  found  in  Num.  xxxi.  50-54. 
There  had  been  war  with  Midian,  immense  spoil  had 
been  taken,  and  not  one  of  the  Israelitish  warriors 
had  fallen.     At  the  command  of   God,  a  certain 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  247 

portion  of  the  spoil  was  given  to  the  Levites,  and  for 
the  service  of  the  tabernacle.  But  we  read  that  the 
officers  of  the  army  came  near  to  Moses  and  said, 
"  We  have  brought  an  oblation  for  the  Lord,  what 
every  man  hath  gotten  of  jewels,  of  gold,  chains  and 
bracelets,  rings  and  ear-rings,  and  tablets,  to  make 
an  atonement  (obviously  meaning  grateful  acknow- 
ledgment) for  our  souls  (lives)  before  the  Lord/^ 
This  passage  may  be  left  to  speak  for  itself. 

The  examination,  somewhat  extended,  which  we 
have  sought  to  conduct,  brings  us  to  the  fixed  con- 
clusion, so  far  as  we  have  yet  gone,  that  atonement 
in  the  sense  of  expiation  for  sin,  has  no  place  what- 
ever in  the  Mosaic  ordinances.  The  sin  to  which 
alone  these  ordinances  refer  throughout,  is  wholly 
ceremonial,  ritual,  not  moral,  that  is,  not  real  sin  at 
all.  And  not  only  so,  for  it  has  been  proved  very 
distinctly,  that  the  sacrifices  even  for  ceremonial 
offences  were  in  no  sense  meant  to  be  expiatory,  but 
were  simply  the  ordained  and  significant  mode  in 
which  the  people  expressed  their  desire  to  reconcile 
and  restore  themselves  to  God.  Additional  and 
striking  evidence  of  this  fact  is  still  to  be  adduced. 
In  the  meantime,  we  turn  to  a  passage  which  inci- 
dentally and  from  the  negative  side,  supplies  singular 
evidence.  When  Moses  was  in  the  mount  with  God 
receiving  the  tables  of  the  law,  the  Israelites,  wearied 
out  with  his  long  absence,  and  still  retaining  much  of 


248  MOSAIC   EC0N03IY. 

tlie  spirit  of  Egyptian  idolatry,  formed  a  molten  calf, 
and  bowed  down  before  it,  saying,  '^  These  be  thy 
gods,  0  Israel/^  The  crime  was  punished  awfully ; 
a  vast  multitude  of  the  idolaters,  to  the  number  of 
about  three  thousand,  fell  by  the  sword  of  the 
Levites.  After  the  infliction  of  this  terrible  punish- 
ment, Moses  gathered  the  congregation  together  on 
the  morrow  and  said  to  them,  for  they  were  all 
implicated  in  the  crime,  "  Ye  have  sinned  a  great 
sin,"— no  mere  ceremonial  offence,  but  a  real,  moral 
transgression,  a  transgression  heinous  and  aggravated 
above  measure,  against  the  nature  and  the  law  and 
the  honour  of  Jehovah — "  Ye  have  sinned  a  great 
sin,  and  now  I  will  go  up  unto  the  Lord,  peradventure 
I  shall  make  an  atonement  for  your  sin."  i 

Let  us  well  mark  and  ponder  how  the  man  of  God 
conducted  this  perilous  case.  Of  course,  we  should 
naturally  have  anticipated  that  the  very  first  thing  to 
which  his  convictions  and  his  hopes  as  a  Jew  must 
have  impelled  him,  would  be  sacrifice.  If,  according 
to  modern  conceptions,  sacrifice  was  the  appointed 
method  of  expiating  sin  and  propitiating  the  favour 
of  God,  now,  of  all  others,  was  the  very  moment 
for  proving  the  efficacy  of  the  rite.  Moses  certainly 
understood  the  doctrines  and  the  laws  of  Judaism, 
and  had  an  undoubted  faith  in  them ;  but  strange 
to  say,  he  ofi'ers  no  sacrifice.     Indisputably,  he  did 

^  Exod.  xxxii.  30. 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  24:9 

not  believe  in  the  expiation  of  real  sin  by  sacrifice; 
indisputably,  he  did  not  believe  that  God  would  be 
propitiated  by  blood,  else  he  would  certainly  have 
offered  up  a  victim.  Instead  of  all  this,  in  the 
face  of  all  this,  he  adopts  the  old,  the  primitive, 
the  unchanging,  the  only  and  ever  availing  method, 
that  of  simple,  humble  confession  and  prayer. 
The  people  had  awfully  separated  themselves  from 
their  God ;  they  must  be  brought  back,  recon- 
ciled, atoned  to  Him.  Moses  in  their  name  throws 
himself  at  the  feet  of  God,  in  their  name  con- 
fesses the  sin  and  its  greatness,  and  in  their  name 
begs  forgiveness  from  the  pure,  free  grace  of  the 
divine  bosom.  And  it  was  granted.  The  revela- 
tion of  the  forgiving  mercy  of  the  holy  God,  in 
which  Moses  trusted  thousands  of  years  ago,  and 
on  which  he  cast  a  guilty  nation,  dates  from  the  first 
moment  of  sin.  This  was  the  true  and  the  only 
ground  of  faith  to  all  the  good,  from  the  creation,  on 
through  succeeding  ages,  till  the  advent  of  Christ. 
In  the  reconciling,  redeeming  love  of  the  Incarnate 
One,  we  now  have  evidences  and  influences,  such  as 
earlier  generations  never  knew,  but  substantially  and 
virtually  the  ground  of  faith  is,  and  has  been  ever 
the  same — the  revealed,  forgiving  mercy  of  the  holy 
God.  The  Jewish  economy  did  not  touch  this 
common  heritage  of  man  at  all,  except  that  it  ex- 
pressly contained  and  exhibited  it.     This  was  not 


250  MOSAI€   ECONOMY. 

Jewish,  but  human,  the  hope  of  man,  wherever  there 
was  a  soul  that  struggled  after  God  and  besought 
His  mercy. 

But  without  undervaluing  in  the  least  this  im- 
portant fact,  most  precious  to  man  and  to  all  ages, 
it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  the  Great  Father, 
who  pities  and  loves  all  souls,  had  high  and  special 
purposes  to  accomplish  through  the  agency  of  tlie 
descendants  of  Abraham.  The  Incarnate  Kedeemer 
of  men,  as  concerning  the  flesh,  was  to  spring  from 
this  race,  and  a  line  of  dim  prophetic  twilight  was  to 
be  coincident  with  the  course  of  Jewish  history,  till 
it  merged  and  melted  in  the  dawn  of  Bethle- 
hem, in  the  mysterious  glories  of  Calvary,  and  in 
the  sunshiue  of  the  Christian  revelation.  God  had 
more  to  accomplish  for  the  world  through  their 
means  than  through  means  of  other  nations,  and 
therefore  spoke  to  them  and  through  them,  as  He 
could  not  speak  in  the  case  of  others.  Simply  because 
of  the  merciful,  universal  purpose,  which  in  the  vast 
complications  of  Providence  was  to  be  served  by  them, 
the  Jews  were  in  certain  respects  nearer  to  the  foun- 
tain of  truth  than  others ;  but  they  were  not  therefore 
and  never  were  more  beloved  than  others. 

It  is  impossible  to  interpret  the  profound  historic 
interest  which  to  this  hour  attaches  to  the  Jewish 
nation,  except  on  the  ground  of  a  special  and  grand 
destiny  in  the  purposes  of  Almighty  Providence. 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  251 

Four  thousand  years  ago  the  Jews  were  a  nation,  and 
they  constitute  a  distinctly  recognised  nation  at  this 
day,  though  without  a  country  and  without  political 
organisation.  For  two  thousand  years  they  have 
been  dispersed  over  all  quarters  of  the  globe,  Europe, 
Asia,  Africa,  and  America,  amongst  all  nations, 
Pagan,  Mohammedan,  and  Christian,  Koman  Catholic 
and  Protestant,  and  have  many  times  been  pursued 
with  most  merciless  hostility.  But  they  have  not 
yet  perished,  not  melted  away,  have  not  been 
swallowed  up  by  surrounding  and  aggressive  popu- 
lations, not  been  slowly  fused  down  and  rendered 
indistinguishable  from  the  masses  on  every  side. 
After  four  thousand  years  of  existence  and  two 
thousand  years  of  dispersion  and  persecution,  they 
remain  a  distinct,  recognised  people,  having  preserved 
their  language,  their  laws,  their  worship,  and  even 
their  physiognomy,  to  this  day.  What  does,  what 
can  it  mean?  The  fact  is  perfectly  alone  in  all 
history.  Not  another  such  example,  nor  anything 
approaching  to  it,  can  be  pointed  out  in  the  entire 
annals  of  the  world.  It  is  not  the  sacred  books  of 
the  Jews,  nor  even  their  religion,  to  which  we  need 
to  appeal.  Their  very  existence,  were  there  nothing 
else,  is  a  standing  proof  of  a  marvellous  purpose  of 
Providence,  somehow  connected  with  their  preserva- 
tion and  isolation. 

The  key  to  the  interpretation  of  all  the  peculiarities 


252  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 

of  ancient  Judaism,  lies  here,  as  we  venture  to  judge. 
An  ignorant  and  barbarous  people  were  to  be  dis- 
ciplined for  a  lofty  and  godlike  mission,  of  the  real 
nature  of  which,  its  mystery,  its  vastness,  its  gran- 
deur, they  were  to  the  last  almost  as  unaware  as 
others.  By  means  of  a  stringent  and  all  embracing 
form  of  worship,  which  affected  every  hour  of  the 
day,  and  every  element  and  aspect  of  their  life,  they 
were  brought  into  peculiar  and  constant  relation  with 
the  one  true  Jehovah,  and  taught  to  believe  and  feel 
that  they  were  His  people.  By  a  succession  of  never- 
ending  sacred  rites,  every  one  of  which,  even  at  the 
peril  of  their  lives,  they  had  to  observe  scrupulously, 
to  the  veriest  jot  and  tittle,  they  were  not  only 
habituated  to  the  thought  of  God  but  inspired  with 
profound  awe  of  Him,  and  educated  in  the  conviction 
of  His  constant  presence,  His  unerring  observation, 
and  the  perpetual  reverence  which  He  demanded. 
From  age  to  age,  heroic  souls  were  born  among  them 
to  govern,  deliver,  rebuke,  or  punish  them,  and  to 
reform  their  institutions  and  their  manners.  Gifted 
sages  were  raised  up  to  inspire  them  with  exalted 
and  pure  conceptions  of  Jehovah.  Holy  men  of 
God  spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  historians,  and  psalmists,  and  prophets,  and 
seers,  uttered  their  divine  messages  through  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land.  To  the  Jews,  as 
to  no  other  people  under  heaven,  were  committed 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  253 

the  oracles  of  God.  Without  philosophy,  without 
science,  without  literature,  except  of  a  sacred  kind, 
the  writings  of  their  inspired  men  contain  for  the 
world,  the  largest  amount  anywhere  to  be  found,  of 
what  the  world  to  this  day  acknowledges  to  be  best 
and  truest  in  divine  religion.  Objections,  some  of 
them  of  great  weight,  and  all  of  them  meriting  im- 
partial examination,  have  often  been  taken  to  in- 
dividual portions  of  the  Old  Testament,  to  some  of 
its  facts,  its  moral  precepts,  its  doctrines,  its  spirit. 
But  it  is  seldom  understood,  that  were  the  whole  of 
the  portions  objected  to  taken  out,  the  Old  Testament 
would  be  diminished  to  no  considerable  extent,  and 
it  would  still  be  a  repository  of  essential  and  highest 
truth  for  man,  a  tithe  of  which  all  the  sacred  books 
in  the  world  besides  put  together  could  not  supply. 

During  the  present  century,  and  increasingly  as 
the  century  has  advanced,  enlightened  research  has 
been  laboriously  directed  to  the  Yedas,  and  Puranas, 
and  Shasters  of  India,  and  to  the  Avesta  and  Zend- 
Avesta  of  Persia.  1  Thank  God,  for  divine  passages 
in  these  ancient  writings  !  Thank  God,  for  many 
beautiful,  and  pure,  and  true  sayings !     But  impartial 

1  Altogether  unacquainted  with  the  Sanscrit  and  Persian  lan- 
guages, I  have  no  knowledge  of  the  sacred  books  of  the  East,  be- 
yond what  may  be  gathered  from  such  portions  of  them  as  have 
appeared  in  an  English  dress.  But  these  have  not  been  inconsider- 
able, and  may  be  supposed  to  convey  a  tolerably  faithful  impression 
of  the  general  character  of  the  writings. 


254  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 

scliolars  will  not  dispute  that  these  are  few  and  short, 
and  are  found  in  the  midst  of  a  mass  of  what  can 
be  called  by  no  fitter  name  than  Pagan  rubbish. 
Scarcely  have  we  been  touched  by  some  sentence  of 
elevated  and  holy  thought,  than  we  are  dragged  down 
to  coarse,  gross  polytheism,  to  stupid,  childish, 
legendary  tales,  or  to  what  is  as  corrupt  as  it  is 
puerile ;  and  these  form  the  staple  and  the  substance 
of  the  sacred  books.  The  Jewish  Scriptures,  on  the 
other  hand,  are  not  only  more  simple  and  more  clear, 
but  their  teaching  is  persistent  and  uniform.  With 
a  constant  voice  they  proclaim,  sometimes  in  simple 
terms,  but  often  in  language  of  surpassing  magnifi- 
cence and  sublimity,  the  eternity,  the  omnipresence, 
the  omniscience,  the  spirituality,  the  holiness,  and  the 
wisdom,  of  the  one  true  Jehovah.  And,  above  all, 
in  passages  without  number,  and  in  forms  the  most 
tender  and  the  most  touching,  they  consistently  pro- 
claim the  forgiving  mercy  of  the  holy  God. 

But  this  last,  it  is  needful  to  recollect,  was  not 
specially  a  Jewish  revelation,  but  was  common  to  the 
whole  world  from  the  beginning,  and  remained  with 
the  world,  so  far  as  the  world  chose  to  retain  and 
preserve  it  faithfully.  Ever  and  everywhere,  there 
was  a  loving  Spirit  of  God,  striving  with  man,  as  in 
the  long  ages  before  the  flood.  The  blessed  God 
never  abandoned  the  souls  He  had  made,  darkened 
and  sinful  though  they  were.     The  blessed  God  never 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  255 

limited  His  influences  or  even  His  light  to  one  little 
spot  of  earth,  though  for  obvious  reasons  the  light 
which  fell  there  was  more  abundant  and  more  clear 
than  could  shine  elsewhere.  To  Jews  and  Gentiles 
in  common,  to  the  whole  world,  the  primitive,  uni- 
versal ground  of  faith  in  the  mercy  of  a  holy  God 
had  been  revealed  from  the  first.  And  we  shall 
certainly  misconceive  the  economy  of  Moses,  if  we 
suppose  for  a  moment  that  it  was  intended  to  super- 
sede the  primitive  revelation  of  mercy,  and  to  reveal 
a  new  and  peculiar  method,  for  the  forgiveness  of 
sins.  One  thing  is  plain  ;  if  this  had  been  the  case, 
few  except  Jews  could  ever  have  known  it,  and  the 
whole  world  besides  would  simply  have  been  left  to 
perish.  But  on  the  ground  of  all  that  has  been 
advanced  in  this  section,  we  maintain  that  that 
economy  was  only  and  wholly  a  system  of  discipline 
and  of  worship — a  system  wisely  adapted  to  the  con- 
dition and  to  the  special  and  select  destinies  of  the 
Israelitish  people.  Nowhere  and  never  by  God's 
authority  was  forgiveness  of  real  sins  connected  with 
ritual  observances  of  any  kind,  and  above  all,  never 
was  it  connected  with  the  taking  of  animal  life. 

The  example  of  Moses  on  the  mount,  pleading  for 
Israel,  when  they  had  sinned  a  great  sin,  teaches, 
without  the  possibility  of  mistake,  that  forgiveness 
of  sins  was  to  be  obtained,  not  at  all  by  offering  sacri- 
fice, but  wholly  and  solely  as  the  pure,  free  gift  of 


2dG  mosaic  economy. 


God's  grace.  If  anything  were  wanting  to  fortify 
this  conclusion,  it  is  abundantly  supplied  by  the 
unequivocal  judgment  which  is  pronounced  by  the 
writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  chap.  x.  4. 
"It  is  not  possible  that  the  blood  of  bulls  and  of 
goats  should  take  away  sin."  The  sin,  therefore, 
to  which  alone  the  ancient  sacrifices  referred  and 
which  they  are  said  to  cover,  (Kaphar,)  was  cere- 
monial, not  moral.  And  this  is  actually  declared  in 
so  many  words  by  the  same  inspired  writer  in  another 
passage  of  the  same  Epistle.  He  is  proving  the 
superior  efficacy  of  the  blood  of  Christ,  "  how  much 
more  shall  the  blood  of  Christ  purge  your  con- 
sciences,'' &c.  And  the  ground  on  which  he  thus 
argues  is  this,  "  if  the  bl'X)d  of  bulls  and  of  goats, 
and  the  ashes  of  an  heifer,  sanctify  to  the  purifying 
of  the  flesh,"  &c.  He  admits  that  these  had  a 
certain  effect,  according  to  the  appointment  of  God, 
but  it  was  merely  an  outward  effect,  they  could  not 
take  away  real  sin,  not  at  all ;  if  they  sanctified,  that 
is,  set  apart,  separated,  distinguished,  it  was  only 
externally,  the  efi'ect  reached  no  farther  than  the 
outer  relations,  and  the  social  and  ecclesiastical  stand- 
ing. That  was  literally  all,  in  the  judgment  of  an 
inspired  apostle  when  announcing  formally  the 
meaning  and  the  highest  efficacy  of  the  ancient 
economy.  It  was  not,  according  to  this  authority,  a 
scheme  of  forgiveness,  a  plan  for  the  salvation  of  the 


MOSAIC  ECONOMY.  257 

soul.  It  was  simply  a  system  of  worship  and  of 
discipline.  It  reached  to  "the  purifying  of  the 
flesh,"  but  nothing  more. 

We  come  to  this :  the  Israelites,  for  high  and 
special  reasons,  were  brought  into  relation  with  the 
living  God,  and  admitted  to  His  temple  and  His 
worship.  But  a  thousand  causes,  every  day  some 
outward  defilement,  some  neglect,  or  some  violation 
of  ceremonial  rites  and  forms,  of  which  they  might 
even  be  unaware,  might  interrupt  the  relation  and 
render  them  unworthy.  They  needed,  and  were 
taught  that  they  needed,  perpetual  cleansing  from 
personal,  outward  unworthiness,  needed  to  renew 
their  acknowledgments,  their  submission,  their  sur- 
render to  God,  as  a  peculiar  and  separate  people,  and 
to  reconcile  and  restore  themselves  to  His  service, 
by  the  means  which  He  had  ordained.  Hence,  and 
only  hence,  originated  not  only  the  daily  and  more 
ordinary  re-consecrations  by  sacrifice,  but  also  the 
grand,  solemn,  annual  purgation  from  all  the  ritual 
delinquencies  of  a  lengthened  period ;  hence  the  new 
beginning  of  the  ceremonial  year,  and  their  reinstate- 
ment in  all  the  privileges  and  rights  of  a  holy  and 
chosen  people.  Under  the  guidance  of  the  inspired 
apostle,  whose  decisive  words  have  been  quoted,  we 
look  back  on  the  entire  Jewish  economy,  on  the 
tabernacle  and  the  temple,  on  the  burnt-ofierings 
and  the  sin-offerings,  and  the  trespass-offerings,  and 


258  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 


the  peace-offerings,  and  the  wave-offerings,  and  the 
meat-offerings,  and  the  drink-offerings  on  the  daily- 
morning  and  evening  sacrifices,  the  special  services 
for  Sabbath  days  and  for  new  moons,  on  the  three 
great  festivals,  and  especially  on  the  most  solemn  of 
them  all,  the  feast  of  atonement,  and  we  learn  with- 
out misgiving,  that  these  all  sanctified  only  to  the 
purifying  of  the  flesh,  but  nothing  more.  They  did 
not  touch  real  sin,  and  they  were  never  intended  to 
touch  real  sin.  Ceremonial  reconciliation  to  God, 
outward  restoration  to  His  worship,  they  could  and 
did  secure,  but  real  forgiveness,  forgiveness  of  real 
sin,  then,  as  now  and  always,  was  dispensed  only  to 
humble,  simple  faith  in  the  pure,  free  mercy  of  the 
holy  God. 

Eeligion  in  the  human  soul, — veneration  of  the 
living  God,  trust  in  His  holy  mercy  and  love  of  Him, 
of  what  He  is  and  of  what  He  loves — must  be  essen- 
tially the  same  everywhere,  and  for  all  ages.  The 
outward  modes  of  expressing  this  inward  condition, 
like  the  many  tongues  of  men,  the  visible  symbols  of 
it,  that  is  to  say,  the  forms  and  rites  of  religious 
service,  may  vary  endlessly,  but  the  invisible  real 
constituents  of  religion  are  unalterable.  Genuine 
piety  and  goodness  in  a  Jew  thirty  centuries  ago, 
and  in  a  Christian  at  this  hour,  cannot  differ  in  any 
really  essential  element.  It  is  a  patent  fact,  that  the 
Jewish  psalms  chanted  three  thousand  years  ago  in 


MOSAIC  ECONOMy.  259 

the  temple  of  Jerusalem,  speak  now,  to  myriads  of 
human  hearts  in  Europe,  Asia,  America,  and  Africa, 
with  a  subduing  power  which  is  irresistible,  and  are 
as  fresh  and  as  true  to  the  mental  states  of  the 
good,  to  their  sins,  their  conflicts,  their  doubts,  their 
fears,  their  depressions,  their  joys,  their  faith  and 
their  hope,  as  if  they  had  been  written  yesterday. 
Christians  can  find  no  fitter  or  happier  words  in 
which  to  utter  their  holiest  feelings  and  their  pro- 
foundest  experiences,  than  those  of  the  old  shepherd- 
king  of  Israel — and  why  ?  Because  religion  in  the  soul 
is  and  must  be  the  same  for  all  times  and  for  all  lands. 
The  extraordinary  attention  which  has  been  be- 
stowed on  the  mere  ritual  of  Judaism  has  proved 
most  misleading,  and  a  morbid  fancy  has  busied 
itself  in  detecting  latent  spiritual  meanings  in  it, 
which  it  certainly  never  contained.  It  was  ordained 
in  the  divine  wisdom  and  goodness,  and  we  cannot 
doubt  that  it  was  found  a  help  to  piety  and  a  fitting 
medium  for  that  age  and  people,  through  which  the 
emotions  of  the  soul  might  be  uttered  forth.  But 
pious  emotions  and  experiences,  though  capable  of 
being  expressed  in  many  different  modes,  are  apart 
from  them  all,  and  have  another  and  a  far  deeper 
origin  than  any  outward  ritual.  All  that  was  real 
in  the  soul  of  the  old  Jew  had  its  root,  just  as  at  this 
hour,  in  holy  truth,  perceived  and  loved  and  chosen 
by  his  will,  and  in  the  agency  of  that  Divine  Spirit, 


260  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 


who  works  independently  of  tabernacle  or  temple  or 
altar.  We  have  so  reasoned  respecting  the  symbols 
and  forms  of  Jewish  worship,  as  if  they  were  essential 
to  salvation,  and  as  if  they  constituted  to  the  Israel- 
ites the  very  method  of  their  spiritual  acceptance 
with  God.  But  it  must  be  an  entire  mistake.  Exact 
obedience  to  the  Mosaic  law  was  indispensable  on 
many  grounds.  It  was  certainly  indispensable  to 
their  national  salvation,  and  was  the  one  condition 
on  which  they  retained  their  peculiar  relation  to  God, 
and  their  position  and  their  privileges  as  a  separated 
people ;  but  it  did  not,  and  could  not,  in  the  least 
determine  the  presence  within  them  or  the  absence 
of  real  religious  life.  An  Israelite  might  observe  in 
the  exactest  form  all  the  sacrifices  and  services  of 
the  temple,  and  be  entitled  to  be  held,  in  this  regard, 
perfectly  faultless  and  sinless,  who  was  nevertheless 
really  impenitent  and  ungodly.  Then,  as  now,  what 
a  human  soul  really  was  depended  entirely  on  the 
irxward  convictions  and  principles  and  reigning  spirit, 
and  was  determined  not  at  all  by  what  was  specially 
Jewish,  but  by  what  was  generic  and  human,  or 
rather  divine.  An  Israelite  long  ago  struggling  after 
God,  oppressed  with  the  consciousness  of  inward  evil, 
and  longing  to  throw  off  the  burden  and  return  to 
the  Father  against  whom  he  had  sinned,  was  in 
nothing  essentially  different  from  true  penitents  at 
this  day,  and  had  no  refuge  but  the  old,  the  pri- 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  261 

mitive,  the  universal  revelation  given  to  the  whole 
world  in  common — the  forgiving  mercy  of  the  holy- 
God.  Trusting  simply  in  this,  he  was  at  peace,  re- 
conciled and  restored,  pardoned  and  saved,  not  on 
the  ground  of  any  sacrifice  or  expiation,  but  in  the 
mere,  pure,  free  mercy  of  the  Most  High. 

But  take  the  opposite  alternative.  Let  it  be  sup- 
posed that  a  Jew  had  adopted  what  indeed  was  the 
universal  Pagan  notion,  that  of  appeasing  divine 
anger,  and  propitiating  divine  favour.  Let  it  be 
supposed  that,  having  offered  sacrifice  according  to 
the  law,  he  looked,  on  this  ground,  for  forgiveness 
from  God  for  his  real  sin.  What  then?  In  this 
case  it  must  be  maintained,  not  as  a  mere  matter  of 
individual  opinion,  but  on  the  clear  authority  of  the 
New  Testament,  that  he  trusted  in  an  unmitigated 
imtruth.  "It  is  not  possible "  —  it  never  was  or 
couhl  be  possible — "that  the  blood  of  bulls  or  of 
goats  should  take  away  sins.''  On  this  subject,  very 
strong  and  gross  language  is  ventured  by  good  men, 
even  up  to  the  present  day.  Kurtz,  on  the  sacrificial 
language  of  the  Old  Testament,  thus  writes : — "  The 
soul  of  the  sacrificed  animal  made  expiation  for  the 
sinful  soul  sacrificing,  and  procured  the  forgiveness 
of  sins."  Again,  "  The  sinless  soul  of  the  animal  was 
the  medium  of  expiation  to  the  sinful  and  guilty  soul 
of  the  man.''  Again,  "  The  laying  on  of  hands  was 
the  transfer  of  sin  and  guilt  from  the  man  to  the 


262  MOSAIC    ECONOMY. 

beast."  1  We  meet  all  such  statements  with  a  short 
but  invincible  reply.  Unless  the  apostle  Paul  be  at 
fault  in  his  reasoning,  they  must  be  altogether  un- 
true. "  It  is  not  possible  that  the  blood  of  bulls  and 
of  goats  should  take  away  sins."  And  if  this  ever 
was  and  is  impossible,  shall  we  on  any  ground  ima- 
gine that  God  nevertheless  intended  the  Jews  to 
believe  it?  Did  He,  by  any  utterance  or  arrange- 
ment of  His,  create  this  delusion  ?  or  did  He  tacitly 
allow  it,  or  countenance  or  favour  it  in  any  way  ?  It 
cannot  be ;  the  suspicion  is  blasphemy. 

It  is  argued  that  the  great  sacrifice  to  be  ofifered 
by  the  Messiah  in  the  end  of  the  ages,  and  not  the 
actual  animal  sacrifices,  which,  on  the  contrary,  were 
simply  prefigurative  and  typical,  was  that  alone  on 
which  the  faith  of  the  pious  Israelite  rested  for  sal- 
vation. But  if  evidence  of  the  existence  of  this  anti- 
cipative,  substitutionary  faith  be  required,  it  cannot 
be  produced.  There  was  a  universal  and  confident 
hope  in  Judea  of  a  coming  Messiah ;  but  the  notion 
of  a  sacrifice  to  be  endured  by  the  Messiah,  if  it  was 
ever  entertained,  has  at  least  never  found  expression 
in  the  Old  Testament,  and  exists  only  in  the  devout 
imagination  of  Christians.  That  the  ancient  Jews 
could  form  no  possible  preconception  of  the  life  and 
death  of  Jesus  Christ  seems  indisputable.  To  say 
nothing  of  incarnation,  and  supposing  them  able  to 

1  Clark,  Edinburgh,  pp.  75,  80,  and  86. 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  263 

preconceive  a  God  in  human  form,  could  they  by  any 
possibility  imagine  this  Incarnate  Deity  humbled 
before  His  creatures,  despised,  rejected,  publicly  con- 
demned, and  at  last  ignominiously  cut  off  and  cast 
away  from  the  face  of  the  earth?  Is  it  forgotten 
that  these  very  things,  when  they  occurred,  caused 
all  but  the  entire  Jewish  nation  to  reject  the  Christ  of 
God  when  he  actually  appeared  ?  Is  it  forgotten  that 
these  are  the  very  things  which  for  two  thousand  years 
have  kept,  as  they  continue  to  keep,  the  entire  Jewish 
nation  at  an  almost  hopeless  distance  from  the  Mes- 
siah ?  And  can  it  be  believed  that  these  things  so 
incredible  and  so  hateful  when  they  were  realised 
—  that  these,  or  anything  like  these,  could  be 
preconceived  centuries  before  they  happened,  and 
preconceived  through  the  aid  of  bleeding  victims  on 
the  altar ;  and  not  only  thus  preconceived,  but  wel- 
comed, so  as  to  be  the  ground  of  an  intelligent  and 
happy  faith  ?  It  seems  the  merest  impossibility,  and 
it  is  destitute  of  the  slightest  evidence. 

There  is  not  a  single  instance,  so  far  as  we  are 
aware,  in  which  any  Old  Testament  writer  represents 
the  legal  sacrifices  as  types  or  prefigurations  of  a 
nobler  sacrifice  to  be  offered  up,  once  for  all,  in  the 
future  ages.  And  not  only  so,  there  is  not  a  single 
instance,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  in  which  it  is  indi- 
cated that  the  legal  sacrifices,  whether  as  present  or 
as  anticipative  and  prefigurative  acts,  were  the  ground 


264  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 

of  tlie  pardon  of  real  sin ;  there  is  not  a  single  passage 
of  the  Old  Testament  in  which,  either  by  God  or 
man,  the  offering  of  sacrifice  is  connected  with  the 
salvation  of  the  soul.  It  ought  to  be  pondered  with 
profound  seriousness  by  all,  that  the  Jehovah  of  the 
Bible  never  declares,  "  lay  your  sacrifices  on  mine 
altar,  and  your  souls  shall  be  saved,"  and  that  no  Old 
Testament  saint  is  ever  heard  using  the  plea  with  his 
God,  "  pardon  mine  iniquity,  for  I  have  offered  up 
all  the  appointed  sacrifices."  It  is  altogether  and 
uniformly  the  reverse. 

David  the  king  fell  before  a  shameful  and  horrible 
temptation,  and  committed  a  double  and  atrocious 
crime.  Did  he  hasten  to  the  altar  to  make  expiation 
and  atonement  ?  No.  "  Thou  desirest  not  sacri- 
fice," he  says,  "  else  would  I  give  it."  This  was  no 
case  for  sacrifice,  it  was  real,  not  ritual  transgression, 
and  sacrifice  of  another  kind,  true,  inward,  spiritual 
self-sacrifice  alone  could  avail  here.  "  Thou  desirest 
not  sacrifice,  else  would  I  give  it."  "  The  sacrifices 
of  God  are  a  broken  spirit,  a  broken  and  a  contrite 
heart,  0  God,  thou  wilt  not  despise."  David  finds 
refuge  in  the  primitive,  divine  sanctuary — free,  for- 
giving mercy — and  betakes  himself  to  the  old,  only 
way  of  humble  confession  and  prayer.  "  Have  mercy 
upon  me,  0  God,"  he  cried — because  I  have  offered 
the  appointed  sacrifices?  no  —  *' according  to  thy 
loving-kindness :  according  imto  the  multitude  of  thy 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  265 

tender  mercies,  blot  out  my  transgressions.  Wash 
me  throughly  from  mine  iniquities,  and  cleanse  me 
from  my  sin.  Create  in  me  a  clean  heart,  0  God ; 
and  renew  a  right  spirit  within  me."l 

At  the  dedication  of  the  temple,  after  innume- 
rable sacrifices  had  been  offered  up,  Solomon  con- 
secrated the  house  of  God  by  prayer,  and  here 
are  some  of  the  sentences  of  the  memorable  in- 
vocation. "  When  thy  people  Israel  be  smitten 
down  before  the  enemy,  because  they  have  sinned 
against  thee,  and  shall  turn  again  to  thee,  and 
confess  thy  name,  and"  —  offer  sacrifice  and  ex- 
piation? no  —  "pray,  and  make  supplication  unto 
thee  in  this  house :  then  hear  thou  in  heaven,  and 
forgive  the  sin  of  thy  people  Israel."  "  What 
prayer  and  supplication  soever  be  made  by  any  man, 
or  by  all  thy  people  Israel,  which  shall  know  every 
man  the  plague  of  his  own  heart,  and  spread  forth 
his  hands  towards  this  house:  then  hear  thou  in 
heaven  thy  dwelling-place,  and  forgive,"  &c.  &c.  "  If 
they  shall  bethink  themselves  in  the  land  whither 
they  were  carried  captives,  saying,  we  have  sinned, 
and  done  perversely,  we  have  committed  wickedness : 
and  so  return  unto  thee  with  all  their  hearts,  and 
pray  unto  thee  towards  the  land,  which  thou  gavest 
unto  their  fathers,  the  city  which  thou  hast  chosen, 
and  this  house  which  I  have  built  for  thy  name; 

1  Ps.  li.  1,  2,  10,  16, 17. 


266  MOSAIC  ECONOMY. 

then  hear  thou  their  prayer  and  their  supplication 
in  heaven  thy  dwelling-place,  and  maintain  their 
cause,"  &C.1  There  is  not  a  single  hint  here  of 
sacrifice  as  the  medium  of  pardon  and  reconcilia- 
tion. The  one  method  is  confession,  prayer,  and 
trust  in  the  primitive  revelation  of  free,  forgiving 
mercy. 

But  strange  to  say,  even  the  Old  Testament  con- 
tains very  direct  and  unambiguous  teachings  on  this 
subject,  and  to  the  same  effect.  "  Hath  the  Lord  as 
great  delight  in  burnt-offerings  and  sacrifices,  as  in 
obeying  the  voice  of  the  Lord  ?  Behold,  to  obey  is 
better  than  sacrifice,  and  to  hearken  than  the  fat  of 
rams."  2  '« I  desired  mercy  and  not  sacrifice,  and 
the  knowledge  of  God  more  than  burnt-offering."  ^ 
"  Wherewith  shall  I  come  before  the  Lord,  and  bow 
myself  before  the  High  God  ?  Shall  I  come  before 
Him  with  burnt-offerings,  with  calves  of  a  year  old  ? 
Will  the  Lord  be  pleased  with  thousands  of  rams,  or 
wdth  ten  thousands  of  rivers  of  oil  ?  Shall  I  give  my 
first-born  for  my  transgression,  the  fruit  of  my  body 
for  the  sin  of  my  soul  ?"  The  patent  design  of  these 
questions  is  to  expose  the  perfect  worthlessness  of  all 
sacrifices,  however  costly,  as  a  means  of  putting  away 
sin.  But  the  answer  to  the  questions  is  more  signifi- 
cant and  decisive  still, — "  He  hath  showed  thee,  0 

1 1  Kings  viii.  33,  34,  38,  39,  47-49.  =  1  Sam.  xv.  22. 

^  Hosea  vi.  5. 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  267 

man,  what  is  good,  and  what  doth  the  Lord  require 
of  thee  " — sacrifices  ?  thousands  of  the  costliest  offer- 
ings ?  No — ''  but  to  do  justly,  to  love  mercy,  and  to 
walk  humbly  with  thy  God/'  ^  If  this  be  legalism, 
as  has  been  often  said — if  this  be  salvation,  not  by 
faith  but  by  works,  at  the  least  it  does  not  belong 
only  to  the  Old  Testament.  The  same  thing,  vir- 
tually, only  in  a  more  thoroughly  legal  dress,  is  found 
in  the  New  Testament.  "  Pure  religion  and  unde- 
filed  before  God,  even  the  Father,  is  this,  to  visit  the 
fatherless  and  widows  in  their  affliction,  and  to  keep 
himself  unspotted  from  the  world."  2  The  eye  of  God 
discerns  the  spirit  which  is  in  a  man,  and  which  alone 
determines  what  he  is.  Sacrifices,  ritual  conformity, 
outward  acts  of  worship,  have  their  meaning,  without 
doubt,  but  the  inner,  reigning  law  of  a  man's  soul 
and  life  is  the  supreme,  the  sole  test.  We  ask,  with 
the  old  prophet,  is  he  reverent  and  lowly  before  God  ? 
is  he  upright  and  true  ?  is  he  merciful  as  his  Father 
in  heaven  is  merciful  ?  We  ask,  with  the  apostle 
James,  is  he  pure  in  heart  ?  is  he  self-denying  and 
devoted  to  the  good  of  others  ? 

The  sacrifices  under  the  law  of  Moses  were  of 
importance  on  many  obvious  accounts,  and  they 
were  imperatively  binding, — for  the  highest  of  all 
reasons,  the  command  of  God.  But  they  had  no 
spiritual  worth,  except  arising  from  the  principles 
1  Micah  vi.  7,  8.  =  James  i.  27. 


268  MOSAIC   ECONOMY. 

and  the  state  of  the  hjsart ;  and  in  the  matter  of 
the  forgiveness  of  sin  and  reconciliation  to  God, 
they  had  no  worth  or  power  at  all.  The  Being 
who  in  His  wisdom  ordained  them,  denounces  them, 
however  outwardly  and  ritually  faultless,  when 
the  inward  state  of  those  who  offered  them  was 
vicious  or  godless.  "  To  what  purpose  is  the  multi- 
tude of  your  sacrifices  unto  me  ?  saith  the  Lord :  I 
am  full  of  the  burnt-offerings  of  rams,  and  the  fat  of 
fed  beasts ;  and  I  delight  not  in  the  blood  of  bullocks, 
or  of  lambs,  or  of  he-goats.  When  ye  come  to  ap- 
pear before  me,  who  hath  required  this  at  your  hand, 
to  tread  my  courts  ?  Bring  no  more  vain  oblations ; 
incense  is  an  abomination  unto  me  ;  the  new-moons 
and  sabbaths,  the  calling  of  assemblies,  I  cannot  away 
with  ;  it  is  iniquity,  even  the  solemn  meeting.  Your 
new  moons  and  your  appointed  feasts  my  soul  hateth: 
they  are  a  trouble  unto  me;  I  am  weary  to  bear 
them.  And  when  ye  spread  forth  your  hands,  I  will 
hide  mine  eyes  from  you :  yea,  when  ye  make  many 
prayers,  I  will  not  hear :  your  hands  are  full  of  blood. 
Wash  you,  make  you  clean ;  put  away  the  evil  of 
your  doings  from  before  mine  eyes  ;  cease  to  do  evil ; 
learn  to  do  well ;  seek  judgment ;  relieve  the  op- 
pressed ;  judge  the  fatherless  ;  plead  for  the  widow."  l 
To  what  do  all  these  marvellous  words  evidently 
point  ?  There  is  something  immeasurably  more  im- 
1  Isa.  i.  11-17. 


MOSAIC   ECONOMY.  269 

portant  than  sacrifices,  however  ceremonially  perfect ; 
and  that  something  is  the  state  of  the  heart, — the  in- 
ward principles  and  laws  of  the  soul.  But  what  be- 
comes of  such  sinners  as  God  in  this  strong  passage 
rebukes  and  condemns?  Having  denounced  their 
wickedness  and  declared  His  demands,  does  He  forth- 
with leave  them  to  themselves  ?  Or  is  He  prepared 
still  to  deal  with  them,  and  if  so,  on  what  ground  ? 
If  sacrifice  had  been  His  own  appointed  medium  of 
expiation  and  salvation,  God  must  have  directed 
them,  though  in  a  totally  new  spirit,  to  offer  sacrifice. 
But  not  a  word  is  uttered  respecting  that  rite,  as  if  it 
had  anything  to  do  with  pardon.  Instead  of  this, 
here  is  the  divine  method  following  at  once,  without  a 
break,  the  exposure  and  denunciation  of  sin. — "  Come 
now,  and  let  us  reason  together,  saith  the  Lord: 
though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet,  they  shall  be  as  white 
as  snow  ;  though  they  be  red  like  crimson,  they  shall 
be  as  wool."  i  It  is  Heaven's  simple,  glorious,  unen- 
cumbered plan, — forgiveness,  the  pure,  free  gift  of 
God's  grace.  "I,  even  I,  am  he  that  blotteth  out 
thy  transgressions,'' — on  the  ground  of  sacrifice,  of 
adequate  atonement  and  satisfaction  ?  no,  — "  for 
mine  own  sake,  and  will  not  remember  thy  sins."  2 

1  Isa.  i.  18.  2  Isa,  xliii.  25, 


CHAPTER  IX. 

SACRIFICE    OF    CHRIST. 

Voluntary — "I  lay  down  My  Life" — Issue  Foreseen  and  Encoun- 
tered Willingly — Escape  without  Dishonour,  Impossible — ^Men, 
Sole  Agents  in  Crucifixion — Determinate  Fore-knowledge  of 
God — Natural  Course  of  Events — Wholly,  a  Human  Crime — 
Ko  Sacrifice  by  Men  to  God — No  Divine,  Judicial  Arrange- 
ment— Two  Gods — Tri-unity  Destroyed  —  Substitution,  its 
Meaning — Figure,  not  Reality — Mere  Human  Notions,  trans- 
ferred to  Mind  of  God — Natural  Sense  of  Scripture — Fictions 
taken  for  Facts— Perfect  Love,  in  Death  of  Christ — Human 
Self-sacrifice — Noble  and  Ennobling — Ray  from  Heaven — 
Eternal  Fountain  of  Pure  Generosity — God's  Sacrifice  for  Men 
— Conquers  SouL 


A  PHYSICAL  miracle,  amidst  the  wilds  of  Sinai, 
is  supjjosed  to  prefigure  the  spiritual  mystery 
which  long  afterwards  was  unveiled  outside  the  gate 
of  Jerusalem.  The  bush  that  burned  with  fire  and 
yet  was  not  consumed,  is  held  to  be  a  symbol  of 
the  awful  death  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  And  it  needs 
no  extravagant  fancy,  but  only  reverent  and  calm 
thought,  to  perceive  points  of  analogy  between  the 
two  facts.  On  a  holier  mountain  than  Horeb,  a 
greater  spectacle  than  the  burning  bush  is  set  before 
the  eyes  of  men,  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  is 
taking  away  the  sins  of  the  world ! "  It  is  simply 
true,  besides,  as  of  old,  that  only  in  the  far-ofP  desert, 
with  the  awful  stillness  around,  and  the  vast  skies 
overhead,  only  in  the  deep  solitude  and  silence  of  the 
soul,  in  moments  of  intense,  lowly,  and  rapt  spiritual 
vision,  we  can  gaze  on  this  transcendent  spectacle,  so 
as  to  reach  even  the  outermost  fringe  of  its  mysteri- 
ous significance.  There  is  here  an  unearthly  struggle 
between  darkness  and  light,  the  light  lurid  and 
terrible  from  the  darkness  which  envelopes  and 
threatens  to  quench  it,  the  darkness  ever  more  visible 


274  SACRIFICE   OF   CHRIST. 

from  the  flashing  light  which  darts  across  it.  A 
dread  conflict  is  waging,  a  conflict  of  life  with  death, 
death  trampling  down  and  crushing  out  the  vital 
flame,  life  flickering,  and  sinking,  and  seeming  to 
expire,  hut  enkindling  again  and  glowing  anew,  and 
flaming  up  into  a  hlaze  of  triumph,  in  which  death 
itself,  at  last,  shall  he  consumed.  "  0  death,  where 
is  thy  sting  ?  0  grave,  where  is  thy  victory  ?  The 
sting  of  death  is  sin,  and  the  strength  of  sin  is  the 
law  ;  hut  thanks  he  unto  God,  who  giveth  us  the 
victory,  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  Not  man 
hut  God  is  here,  amidst  the  struggle  and  conflict, 
God  in  man,  God  teaching  the  world  by  a  stupendous 
example,  and  Himself  making  a  mysterious  sacrifice 
for  His  erring  children.  It  is  proclaimed  from  the 
cross  to  the  wide  universe,  that  there  is  life  in  death, 
gain  in  loss,  dignity  in  self-abasement,  blessedness  in 
suffering,  and  glory  in  shame.  It  is  taught,  as 
nowhere  else  and  never  before  or  since  was  possible, 
that  the  vilest  and  worst  of  deaths  may  be  sublimed 
by  the  soul  of  the  dying,  which  death  cannot  touch, 
and  that  a  love  which  sacrifices  itself  for  others  and 
gives  up  all  to  God,  is  the  last  crown  of  spiritual 
excellence. 

Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  was  sacrificed — that  at  least 
is  not  questioned,  and  cannot  be  questioned  ;  his  life 
was  violently  and  cruelly  taken  away.  It  is  admitted, 
besides,  by  all  who  bear  his  name,  that  he  was  sacri- 


SACRIFICE   OF   CHRIST.  275 


ficed  for  the  sake  of  men,  and  in  order  to  secure  the 
highest  good  of  the  human  race.  We  change  only 
the  form,  not  the  reality  of  this  idea,  when  we  say 
that  he  was  sacrificed  for  sin,  on  account  of  sin,  to 
put  away  sin  ;  because  sin  ever  was  and  is  the  prime 
obstruction  to  the  well-being  of  the  world.  Had 
there  been  no  sin,  men  had  needed  no  redemption. 
So  that  in  the  strictest  sense,  Jesus  died  wholly  on 
account  of  sin,  and  in  order  that  this  radical  curse 
might  be  utterly  and  for  ever  extirpated. 

Whatever  more  than  this  be  true,  there  is,  at  least, 
this  one  thing  additional  perfectly  certain,  if  the  his- 
toric records  be  accepted;  that  Jesus,  of  himself, 
voluntarily  and  freely  sacrificed  his  own  life.  "  I 
lay  down  my  life  for  the  sheep.  Therefore  doth  my 
Father  love  me,  because  I  lay  down  my  life,  that  I 
might  take  it  again.  No  man  taketh  it  from  me, 
but  I  lay  it  down  of  myself.  I  have  power  to  lay  it 
down,  and  I  have  power  to  take  it  up  again."  It 
would  be  wholly  false  to  think  that  anything  was 
ever  done  by  the  holy  Saviour  to  tempt  or  provoke, 
or  in  any  way  influence  men  to  compass  his  death. 
On  the  contrary,  all  that  he  did  was  calculated  to 
render  this  issue  impossible.  But  he  must  pursue 
his  course  of  truth,  and  purity,  and  love,  in  spite  of 
everything.  It  was  a  necessity — the  highest  moral 
necessity — in  him  to  be  faithful  to  himself,  to  God, 
and  to  man,  without  regard  to  consequences,  or  to 


276  SACRIFICE   OF   CHRIST. 

the  prejudices,  the  wishes,  or  the  judgments,  of 
people,  or  rulers,  or  priests.  Being  what  he  was, 
Christ's  death,  in  that  age  and  nation,  was  inevitable, 
and  he  knew  that  it  was.  The  issue  was  not  an 
accident — not  an  unforeseen  and  unhappy  upshot  of 
circumstances,  to  which,  in  spite  of  himself,  he  was 
forced  to  surrender.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  dis- 
tinctly contemplated  from  the  first— as  distinctly 
contemplated  as  any  part  of  his  self-determined 
course.  But  if,  owing  to  the  ignorance  and  the  false 
views  and  the  wicked  passions  of  men,  this  issue  was 
inevitable,  he  was  resolved  that  it  should  not  move 
him  for  an  instant  from  his  integrity  and  fidelity. 
With  his  eyes  open,  of  his  own  free  will  and  pur- 
pose, he  encountered  the  agony,  the  terror,  and  the 
shame  of  crucifixion.  "  He  was  led  as  a  lamb  to  the 
slaughter,  and  as  a  sheep  before  her  shearers  is  dumb, 
so  he  opened  not  his  mouth." 

It  was  indispensable  to  the  success  of  the  mission 
of  divine  love  that  the  Incarnate  should  accept  all 
hazards,  be  they  what  they  might.  Had  he  once 
yielded  to  fear,  or  to  the  instinct  of  self-preservation, 
or  to  the  sense  of  shame,  or  to  disappointed  hope,  or 
to  disgust  and  anger  at  the  baseness  of  men, — had  he, 
on  any  ground,  stopped  short,  and  only  retired  from 
a  course  which  seemed  to  be  fruitless,  this  had  been 
a  confession  of  defeat,  and  a  palpable  distrust  of  God, 
the  living  energy  of  reconciling,  redeeming  power 


SACRIFICE   OF   CHRIST.  277 

had  been  lost,  and  divine  love  had  been  shorn  of  its 
last  overwhelming  expression.  But  if  death  could 
not  be  escaped  without  dishonour,  the  Infinitely 
Mighty  and  Wise  determined  to  convert  even  death 
into  life — to  extract  the  noblest  good  out  of  essential 
evil,  and  to  make  the  very  wrath  of  men  to  praise 
Him.  Leaving  the  perverse  human  will  to  take  its 
way.  He  who  is  wonderful  in  counsel  and  excellent  in 
^working  was  able  to  defeat  His  creatures  by  their 
very  success,  and  to  convert  their  crime  and  their 
curse  into  a  blessing,  wide  as  the  world,  and  lasting 
as  eternity.  Hence  said  the  apostle  Peter  on  the 
day  of  Pentecost,  "  Him  being  delivered" — given  up, 
surrendered — "  in  the  determinate  counsel  and  fore- 
knowledge of  God,  ye  have  taken,  and  with  wicked 
hands  have  crucified  and  slain."  His  betrayal  and 
capture  and  murder,  like  all  the  guilty  outbreaks  of 
the  human  will,  however  opposed  to  truth,  and  right, 
and  God,  were  not  left  out  in  the  vast  system  of  pro- 
vidence, but  distinctly  reckoned  and  provided  against, 
as  wisdom  and  love  should  ordain.  Hence  wrote  the 
prophet  long  before  Messiah's  advent,  "  It  pleased  the 
Lord  to  bruise  (crush)  him ;  He  hath  put  him  to 
grief.''  That  which  comes  out  in  God's  providence 
is  often  in  Scripture  so  put  as  if  it  were  the  direct 
doing  of  God,  though  most  manifestly  it  neither  is 
nor  can  be.  "  The  Lord  hardened  Pharaoh's  heart," 
it  is  said,  when  all  that  God  did  had  a  manifest  ten- 


278  SACRIFICE   OF   CHRIST. 

dency  to  subdue  and  reclaim  rather  than  to  harden. 
But  because  the  actual  effect  was  to  render  the  King 
of  Egypt  only  more  obdurate  than  before,  that  effect 
is  ascribed,  though  it  can  be  so  only  in  the  most 
secondary  and  indirect  sense,  to  the  divine  agency. 
Most  certainly  God  did  not  crush  the  Messiah,  or  put 
him  to  grief.  Most  certainly  the  fact  of  his  being 
crushed  and  grieved  in  itself  was  abhorrent,  not 
pleasing,  to  God.  But,  forasmuch  as  the  love  which 
bore  the  agonies  and  the  shame  of  crucifixion  was 
evinced  to  be  unconquerable,  and  was  eventually  to 
effect  the  redemption  of  a  lost  world,  these  agonies 
and  that  shame  became,  and  truly  were,  an  infinite, 
divine  satisfaction. 

Jesus  died  !  in  harmony  with  the  thought  and  the 
will  of  the  Father,  he  died  ;  and  since  fidelity  to  his 
divine  mission  demanded  that  he  should  brave  all 
consequences,  he  freely  offered  himself  up  a  sacrifice 
to  God,  in  that  cause  which  was  God's  no  less  than 
man's.  Even  the  outward  surrender  was  noble,  the 
noblest  which  it  is  possible  for  humanity  to  yield. 
It  was  a  beautiful  sacrifice  which  was  cheerfully  laid 
upon  the  altar  of  God,  a  young,  fresh,  human  life, 
full  of  active  goodness,  wise  and  meek  and  patient, 
— a  pure,  spotless,  loving,  tender  life.  And  this  was 
but  the  symbol  of  a  higher  sacrifice  still,  for  Jesus 
offered  up  his  soul  to  God.  "  I  and  my  Father  are 
one,"  is  his  own  marvellous  testimony.     At  the  least 


SACRIFICE    OF   CHRIST.  279 

it  must  mean,  at  one,  perfectly  at  one.  The  soul  of 
Jesus  ever  moved  in  unbroken,  filial  harmony  with 
the  mind  of  God.  Divine  thoughts,  divine  purposes, 
divine  sympathies,  divine  love  of  man,  the  divine 
idea  of  redeeming  and  reconciling  man  and  of  estab- 
lishing the  reign  of  purity  and  truth  and  love  and 
peace  on  earth,  found  a  medium  and  a  home  in  him. 
And  when,  at  the  last,  either  the  mission  of  mercy 
must  be  abandoned,  or  the  earthly  life  must  be  sur- 
rendered, his  choice  was  immovable,  his  free,  entire 
will  was  fixed,  and  love  had  its  perfect  work.  Love 
of  God  and  love  of  man  serenely  asserted  their  supre- 
macy. "  Even  so.  Father."  "  Thy  will  be  done." 
"  Father,  into  Thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit," 
and  he  bowed  his  head  and  gave  up  the  ghost,  a  true 
and  holy  and  proper  sacrifice  to  God.  "  For  Christ 
hath  loved  us,"  saith  the  apostle,  "  and  hath  given 
himself  for  us,  an  offering  and  a  sacrifice  to  God  of  a 
sweet  smelling  savour." 

All  the  while,  men  were  the  visible  and  the  only 
direct  agents  in  the  crucifixion.  So  far  as  appeared, 
the  event,  however  abhorrent  to  justice,  occurred 
perfectly  naturally,  and  according  to  the  ordinary 
course  of  things.  Satan  might  enter  into  the  heart 
of  Judas  Iscariot,  as  indeed  he  is  believed  to  do 
wherever  a  wicked  purpose  is  harboured  in  any 
human  soul,  and  the  spirit  of  all  evil  might  be 
equally  busy  with  the  less  conspicuous  parties  con- 


280  SACRIFICE   OF   CHEIST. 

cerned  in  tlie  horrible  transaction.  But  temptation 
is  not  compulsion,  and  the  perpetrators  of  this  mur- 
der simply  obeyed  the  command  of  their  own  vile 
wilL  The  holy  God  who  sees  the  end  from  the 
beginning,  foreknew  this  result,  as  He  foreknows 
every  crime,  and  determined  in  this,  as  in  countless 
instances  besides,  to  bring  glory  and  good  out  of 
human  wickedness  ;  but  this  must  not  be  suffered  to 
conceal  from  us  the  independent  fact,  that  that  which 
He  foreknew  was  wholly  and  only  the  unprompted, 
native,  free  choice  of  men.  Had  the  dread  result 
been  preordained  by  God,  it  had  then  been,  on  every 
just  principle,  the  act  of  God,  and  what  criminality 
it  involved  had  been  lifted  off  from  the  visible  instru- 
ments and  righteously  charged  against  the  invisible 
originator.  But  the  death  of  Jesus  was  the  act  of 
men,  wholly  and  solely  the  act  of  men,  and  of  none 
else,  and  the  actors  Avere  governed,  not  by  an  invin- 
cible decree  of  God,  and  not  by  a  resistless  Satanic 
influence,  but  simply  by  their  own  views  of  the 
character  of  their  victim,  by  what  they  imagined  was 
demanded  for  the  safety  of  their  religion  and  their 
country,  and  by  strong  feelings  of  revenge  and  of 
malice.  The  undoubted  fact  was  this,  some  of  the 
Jewish  rulers  and  people  hated  Jesus  intensely,  and 
urged  by  their  passions  and  their  fears,  they  hurried 
their  country  into  the  murder  of  the  Holy  One  and 
the  Just.     Without  question,  Jesus  fell  a  sacrifice  to 


SACRIFICE   OF   CHRIST.  281 

jealousy  and  rage ;  and  without  question,  the  offerers 
of  the  sacrifice — the  only  offerers — were  the  Jews. 

It  is  pertinent,  indeed  incumbent,  to  note,  in  this 
place,  that  whatever  the  Jews  might  mean,  they 
certainly  did  not  mean,  in  this  instance,  to  offer 
sacrifice  to  Grod  for  their  sins  ;  they  certainly  did  not 
mean  hereby  to  make  atonement  and  to  render  satis- 
faction to  divine  justice.  Not  a  solitary  individual 
in  the  whole  Jewish  nation  at  the  time,  not  a  solitary 
individual  among  the  Koman  officials  and  soldiers, 
not  a  solitary  individual  on  the  face  of  the  whole 
earth,  had,  or  could  have  had,  the  remotest  concej)- 
tion  of  such  a  thing.  We  do  not  need  here  to 
discuss  the  meaning  of  an  expiatory,  propitiatory 
sacrifice,  in  the  scholastic  sense,  for  that  is  well 
understood  and  admitted  on  all  sides.  Such  a 
sacrifice  supposes  that  an  individual,  or  a  number 
of  individuals,  have  come  before  God  to  confess  their 
sins,  and  to  implore  His  forgiveness ;  and  that  in 
order  to  move  Him  to  clemency,  and  to  appease  His 
righteous  anger,  they  have  taken  a  certain  method 
of  expressing  what  they  feel  they  deserve,  and  have 
laid  an  innocent  animal  on  the  altar,  and  put  it  to 
death,  and  poured  out  its  life-blood.  Not  the  merest 
shred  of  such  a  meaning  as  this  can  be  found  in  the 
death  of  Jesus.  Where  was  the  temple,  the  taber- 
nacle, or  the  altar,  where  were  the  persons  solemnly 
presenting  themselves  before  God,  where  was  their 


282  SACKIFICE    OF   CHRIST. 

confession  of  sin,  their  prayer  for  forgiveness,  tlieir 
offering  of  sacrifice  to  God?  They  are  not,  nor 
anything  that  can  be  construed  into  the  remotest 
approach  to  them.  The  Jews  simply  hated  Christ, 
and  thought  him  a  criminal,  dangerous  to  their 
country  and  their  religion,  and  only  worthy  of 
death,  and  they  crucified  him. 

Was  it  ever  heard  of,  that  an  expiatory  sacrifice 
was  offered  up  to  God,  without  the  consent  of  the 
offerer  and  even  without  his  knowledge  ?  Was  it 
ever  heard  of  that  a  certain  act  of  such  a  supposed 
offerer,  amounted  to  a  sacrifice  to  God,  when  not  only 
he  did  not  know  it,  but  when  his  mind,  all  the  while, 
was  thoroughly  possessed  with  perfectly  opposite  con- 
ceptions of  the  whole  transaction?  Was  it  ever 
heard  of,  that  on  the  ground  of  this  so-called  sacri- 
fice totally  unknown  to  him,  a  man  could  be  assured 
that  his  sins  were  atoned,  that  God's  justice  was 
satisfied,  that  God's  anger  was  turned  away,  and  that 
eternal  salvation  was  obtained  for  him  ?  It  seems  to 
throw  into  utter  confusion  all  consistent  ideas  of 
sacrifice,  view  it  how  we  may,  and  still  more,  all 
consistent  ideas  of  God,  in  relation  to  man.  The 
Jews  sacrificed  Christ,  sacrificed  him  to  their  vile 
passions ;  but  as  certainly,  they  offered  no  sacrifice  to 
God,  and  never  dreamed  of  such  a  thing ;  as  certainly 
they  did  not  mean  to  atone  for  their  sins,  or  to  render 
satisfaction  to  divine  justice. 


SACRIFICE    OF    CHRIST.  283 

Without  questioning  what  has  just  been  advanced, 
it  is  maintained  that  there  is  something  beyond, 
which  is  no  less  true,  and  which  furnishes  a  con- 
sistent and  lofty  interpretation  of  the  facts.  Man 
had  no  sacrifice  sufficiently  valuable  to  offer  to  God, 
even  had  he  been  ever  so  much  disposed  to  do  so. 
He  was  doomed  to  perdition,  and  was  utterly  incap- 
able of  making  the  slightest  reparation  for  the  past, 
or  of  doing  anything  to  appease  the  righteous  anger 
of  God,  and  to  rescue  himself  from  deserved  punish- 
ment. In  these  circumstances,  God  himself  finds 
and  offers  up  a  sacrifice  to  Himself,  without  the  con- 
sent or  even  the  knowledge  of  any  creature,  and 
thereafter  tells  the  world  that  its  sin  is  expiated,  that 
divine  justice  is  satisfied,  and  that  divine  anger  is 
appeased.  That  is  to  say,  the  Being,  who  was  sup- 
posed to  be  angry,  but  who  could  not  have  really 
been  so,  takes  it  upon  Himself  to  cool  down  His  own 
wrath  ;  the  Being  who  had  been  deeply  wronged,  and 
who,  it  is  supposed,  had  demanded  extraordinary  re- 
paration from  the  wrong-doers,  when  the  demand  is 
refused,  thereafter  Himself  makes  amends  to  Himself, 
while  His  creatures  are  not  only  uninterested  in  the 
transaction,  but  perfectly  ignorant  of  it.  The  Pagan 
sacrificial  rites  were  fundamentally  false,  but  they  had 
a  meaning,  nevertheless,  a  very  intelligible  meaning. 
The  sacrifices,  actually,  did  something,  it  was  ima- 
gined, and  something  significant,  with  a  view  to  avert 


284  SACRIFICE    OF    CHRIST. 

the  anger  of  the  gods  and  to  obtain  their  favour.  But 
in  the  death  of  Christ,  the  acting  parties  not  only  did 
not  mean  to  offer  sacrifice  to  God,  but  did  not  know 
that,  anyhow,  or  in  any  sense,  sacrifice  to  God  was 
offered.  What  they  did  was  neither  more  nor  less 
than  this,  to  perpetrate  a  horrible  crime,  a  judicial 
murder.  The  incongruity,  not  to  use  a  stronger 
term,  is  not  to  be  measured,  of  God  being  the  real, 
while  men  were  the  visible  agents  in  the  crucifixion, 
of  God  being  Himself  at  once  the  offerer  up  of  a 
sacrifice  to  Himself,  and  the  acceptor  of  it  when 
offered,  of  God  acting  wholly  on  Himself  and  for 
Himself,  appeasing  His  own  anger  and  satisfying  His 
own  justice — His  agency  all  the  while  being  utterly 
unknown  to  a  single  creature,  and  wholly  undiscover- 
able  from  the  outward  circumstances,  and,  as  we 
judge,  irreconcilable  with  them. 

In  the  scholastic  idea  of  Christ's  sacrifice,  there 
seems  inevitably  involved  the  conception  of  two  dif- 
ferent Gods,  however  blasphemous  the  conception  be. 
There  is  God  in  Christ  and  there  is  God  out  of 
Christ,  and  these  two,  in  the  dogma  we  are  examin- 
ing, are  certainly  not  one  God,  for  they  act  different 
parts  and  gain  two  different  purposes.  The  one  God 
wills  to  uphold  the  authority,  and  majesty,  and  purity 
of  the  Godhead ;  the  other  God,  not  in  opposition  to 
the  first,  but  acting  quite  separately,  wills  to  redeem 
men  and  to  render  their  redemption  consistent  with 


SACEIFICE    OF    CHRIST.  285 

divine  authority,  and  majesty,  and  purity.  In  spite 
of  ourselves,  Ave  are  compelled  to  conceive  two  Beings, 
the  one,  with  an  aspect  overwhelming  and  awful,  the 
other  benignant,  subduing,  and  tender.  When  we 
bow  with  adoring  reverence  before  the  eternal,  essen- 
tial unity,  it  is  not  hard  to  think  of  distinct  aspects 
blending  mysteriously  and  harmoniously  in  one  Being, 
or  of  distinct  agencies  and  influences  springing  out  of 
one  source ;  but  this  forces  us  to  separate  the  Divine 
nature  into  two  parts,  to  place  the  severed  unity  in 
tvfo  different  regions,  at  the  same  moment,  and  to 
imagine  two  agents  moving,  if  not  in  hostile,  in  quite 
separate  directions.  There  is  more  than  this,  ne- 
cessitating, not  the  sublime  Tri-unity  of  Scripture, 
the  Eternal,  threefold  distinction  in  the  one  uncreated 
essence,  but  virtually  two  Gods.  The  one  God  is 
represented  as  angry  with  the  other  God,  and  the 
incarnate  God  is  represented  as  bearing  the  wrath  of 
the  first — and  this  with  a  view  to  strike  awe  into  the 
moral  universe,  and  to  prove  the  divine  abhorrence  of 
sin,  and  the  impossibility  of  pardon  without  adequate 
satisfaction  to  justice.  It  would  be  painful  to  pursue 
illustration  in  this  line  ;  but  he  who  wdll  piously  and 
humbly  follow  it  out  for  himself,  will  find  that  we 
have  touched  only  the  outer  verge  of  a  circle  of  im- 
possibilities and  contradictions. 

Jesus  the  Incarnate  was  the  substitute  of  men, 
and  acted  and  suffered  in  their  room.     But  plain  as 


2S6  SACRIFICE    OF    CHRIST. 

these  terms  seem,  it  is  yet  a  question  unsettled  what 
they  actually  convey.  By  one  school  of  theologians 
some  very  beautiful  but  purely  fanciful  illusions  have 
been  founded  on  this  apparently  simple  statement. 
Christ  becomes  not  a  man,  but  man,  the  ideal  man, 
humanity  in  its  normal  and  total  development,  such 
as  the  Great  Father  could  look  upon  with  satisfac- 
tion, and  in  which  He  could  find  a  faithful  embodi- 
ment of  His  own  primitive  eternal  conception.  God 
sought  to  behold,  and  would  have  men  behold,  in  a 
living  form  that  which,  till  the  Incarnation,  had  ex- 
isted only  in  idea.  Christ  was  humanity  imperson- 
ated, and  what  he  did  and  suffered  and  achieved, 
man  did  and  suffered  and  achieved.  Christ  was  a 
type  of  the  idea  and  the  destiny  of  the  race,  and  in 
him  God  recognised  not  an  individual  but  a  totality — 
man,  humanity,  the  race — the  race  contending  against 
privation,  and  grief,  and  pain,  and  rising  above  them, 
struggling  with  temptation  and  conquering  it,  bear- 
ing all  the  direful  consequences  of  sin,  in  a  sinful 
world,  but  recovering  from  them, — going  down  to 
death,  but  bursting  away  from  its  grasp,  and  rising 
into  life  again,  redeemed,  regenerated,  and  disen- 
thralled for  ever.  For  the  satisfaction  and  the  joy 
of  the  Divine  mind,  and  for  the  ultimate  salvation  of 
the  world,  Jesus  our  Lord  personated  and  repre- 
sented the  human  race,  and  was  to  God  the  earnest 
and  first  fruits  of  the  final  harvest  of  all  time. 


SACRIFICE   OF   CHRIST.  287 

Whatever  beauty,  and  whatever  blending  of  truth, 
the  imaginative  and  mystical  soul  may  find  here,  to 
the  plain  understanding  of  common  men,  it  is  funda- 
mentally and  wholly  fictitious  ;  too  ingenious,  too  re- 
condite, and  too  far-fetched  to  be  true.  Jesus  Christ 
of  Nazareth,  the  man  Jesus,  was  a  single  unit  of  the 
human  race,  like  any  other  individual  man.  It  is 
indispensable  to  the  reality,  and  simplicity,  and  pur- 
port of  the  divine  intervention,  that  he  should  be 
this  and  no  more  than  this.  He  had  an  individual 
human  mother,  was  born  in  a  particular  spot,  and 
at  a  precise  date,  stood  in  personal,  individual  rela- 
tionship with  kindred,  with  neighbours,  with  asso- 
ciates and  friends,  with  general,  Jewish  society,  and 
lived,  and  died,  and  filled  out,  with  his  individual 
being  and  doing,  a  definite  span,  and  no  more,  in  the 
outstretching  course  of  time.  Jesus  was  not  human- 
ity, but  a  man ;  his  own  individual  self,  and  no 
more.  Jesus  was  not  the  ideal  man,  and  could  not 
be.  With  profound  reverence,  we  venture  to  think 
that  the  Divine  idea,  that  which  lay  at  the  root  of  the 
Incarnation  itself,  was  something  totally  difi'erentj 
and  far  higher  and  brighter.  God's  ideal,  if  we  dare 
conceive  it,  was  not  man,  in  a  world  of  pain  and  sin, 
not  man  sorrowing,  suffering,  struggling  with  evil, 
though  rising  above  it  and  confronting  death,  though 
conquering  it ;  not  this  at  all,  but  man  in  immortal 
life,  man  set  free  from  sorrow,  and  pain,  and  tempta- 


288  SACRIFICE    OF    CHRIST. 

tion,  and  sin,  man  for  ever  ascending  in  intelligence, 
and  wisdom,  and  purity,  and  love,  and  sweetness,  and 
beauty,  unfolding  his  entire  God-given  nature,  and 
speeding  his  way  onward  in  an  interminable  course, 
opening  out,  without  end,  into  new  regions  of  eternal 
life  and  light.  Can  we  wonder  that,  for  the  realisa- 
tion of  an  idea  so  grand  and  so  blessed,  even  the 
Great  God  should  contemplate  a  sacrifice  which  only 
He  could  make,  and  should  adopt  a  method  all-divine, 
of  transcendent  mystery,  but  of  illimitable  efficiency  ? 
It  was  even  so  in  very  truth,  for  "  God  spared  not 
His  own  Son,  but  delivered  him  up  for  us  all." 

It  comes  out  of  all  this,  that  there  is  a  sense — a 
natural  and  intelligible  sense — in  which  Jesus  the 
Incarnate  was  the  substitute  of  men,  and  acted  and 
suffered  in  their  room.  But  the  language  is  strictly 
figurative,  and  we  must  not  forget  that  a  figure  can 
never  be  so  exact  and  so  perfect  that  it  shall  convey 
the  whole  spiritual  reality,  and  nothing  but  the  spiri- 
tual reality.  In  certain  points  it  will  prove  a  safe 
help  and  guide  to  thought,  but  in  others  it  will  be 
found  inapplicable  and  untrue.  The  life  of  Jesus 
was  wholly  a  vicarious,  a  substituted  life ;  his  hu- 
manity was  not  a  natural,  but  a  preternatural  huma- 
nity, and  was  called  into  being,  not  for  itself 's  sake, 
but  wholly  for  man's  sake,  and,  except  on  this  ac- 
count, it  had  never  existed  at  all.  Certainly,  Jesus 
appeared  in  the  world  in  the  room  of  man,  to  do  for 


SACRIFICE   OF   CHRIST.  289 

man  what  man  could  not  do,  or  would  not  do,  for 
liimself ,  and  to  reconcile  and  restore  the  sinful  human 
soul  to  its  God.  But  we  shall  only  destroy  a  grand 
and  just  idea,  and  turn  it  into  confusion  and  falsity,  if, 
forgetting  that  the  language  in  which  it  is  conveyed 
is  largely  figurative,  we  cast  it  into  the  form  of  a 
hard,  logical  proposition. 

Christ  was  not  the  substitute  of  men  in  all,  or 
even  in  many,  of  the  senses  in  which  these  words 
admit  of  being  understood.  For  example,  he  was 
not  selected  by  men  to  live  and  act  in  their  name ; 
the  generations  of  men  were  never  consulted  on 
the  subject,  and  certainly  never  signified  their  con- 
currence in  such  a  selection.  Not  a  single  gene- 
ration, not  a  single  individual  in  any  of  the  gene- 
rations, had  ever  dreamed  of  such  a  selection.  But 
it  is  supposed  that  God,  in  perfect  harmony  with 
the  human  will  of  Jesus,  arranged  this  substitution, 
without  the  consent  or  the  knowledge  of  His  crea- 
tures. Men,  being  simply  criminals  before  God — 
criminals  lying  under  a  sentence  of  death,  which  it 
was  impossible  for  them,  themselves,  to  escape,  it 
was  ordained  that  Jesus  should  take  their  place,  and 
suffer  the  penalty  of  their  crimes,  and  thus  set  them 
free.  But  if  we  demand  proof  of  this  divine  ordina- 
tion, not  a  shred  of  proof  can  be  produced.  Secret 
things  belong  to  God,  and  of  all  secret  things,  the 
most  secret  and  awful  must  be  His  eternal  purposes. 

T 


290  SACRIFICE    OF    CHRIST. 

There  is  something  appalling  in  the  thought  of  a  hu- 
man being  professing  to  have  access  to  an  ordination 
of  God.  Inferences,  drawn  from  obscure  and  ambigu- 
ous ancient  oracles ;  conclusions,  based  on  isolated 
phrases  and  terms,  must  be  abjured,  as  wholly  im- 
pious. In  such  a  case,  nothing  can  satisfy  a  truly 
reverent  soul  but  a  clear  and  express  revelation  of  a 
secret  decree,  which  had  lain  from  eternity  in  the 
Divine  mind.  But  we  look  in  vain  for  such  a  revela- 
tion, or  anything  in  the  least  approaching  it.  There 
may  be  texts  in  the  Old  Testament  which  it  is  possible 
so  to  interpret,  that  they  shall  not  be  wholly  subver- 
sive of  the  notion  of  a  divine  decree  of  substitution 
and  vicarious  punishment,  but  there  is  not  a  single 
text  of  Scripture  in  which  this  notion  or  anything 
approaching  it  is  directly  expressed,  or  in  which  even 
it  is  natural,  far  less  necessary,  to  presuppose  it. 

Logicians,  in  their  pious  ingenuity  and  subtlety, 
have  striven  to  systematise  and  harmonise  revealed 
truth,  to  trace  ah  initio,  or  rather  ah  eterno,  the  steps 
of  God's  procedure,  to  find  out  the  secret  grounds  on 
which  each  step  was  taken,  and  could  be  justified  in 
rectitude  and  wisdom,  to  discover  the  everlasting 
underlying  principles  of  human  redemption,  and,  by 
means  of  the  dogma  of  substitution,  to  unravel  the 
clue  to  all  the  winding  intricacies  of  spiritual  provi- 
dence. But  they  have  simply  dwelt  so  long  and  so 
fondly  on  their  own  thoughts,  that  they  have  at  last 


SACRIFICE   OP   CHRIST.  291 

believed  them  to  be  divine,  and,  transforming  their 
own  poor  contrivances  into  plans  of  God,  and  the 
speculations  of  time  into  the  decrees  of  eternity,  they 
have  gone  to  the  Scriptures  to  see  the  delusion  con- 
firmed by  tlie  highest  authority.  After  the  abundant 
and  perplexing  experience  of  the  last  thousand  years, 
it  is  not  surprising,  but  very  easy  of  belief  that  they 
have  found,  at  least  have  persuaded  themselves  that 
they  have  found,  what  they  sought,  and  that  with 
perfect  honesty,  and  much  ingenuity  and  skill,  they 
have  been  able  to  make  the  phrases  and  terms  of  the 
New  Testament  consort  w^ith  their  cherished  dogma 
of  vicarious  sin  and  punishment.  ^ 

In  a  beautiful  passage  of  ancient  prophecy  which 
has  been  already  quoted  and  ex2)lained,  we  read, 
"  He  hath  borne  our  griefs  and  carried  our  sorrows, 
he  was  wounded  for  our  transgressions," — ^wholly  on 
account  of  our  transgressions,  certainly  not  on  account 
of  his  own, — "and  bruised  for  our  iniquities;  the 
chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon  him,  and  with 
his  stripes  we  are  healed."  As  the  words  lie  before 
us,  in  their  obvious  and  natural  meaning,  every  one 

^  Few,  who  have  not  actually  experienced  it,  can  have  any  proper 
idea  of  the  almost  insuperable  difi&culty  of  overcoming  the  effect  of 
a  systematic,  scientific,  theological  training.  Certain  dogmas  from 
the  first  are  fixed  in  the  mind  of  the  student  as  of  divine  authority, 
and  hardly  any  amount  of  evidence  is  able  afterwards  to  persuade 
him,  that  instead  of  sacred  truths,  these  are  only  human,  and  not 
wise,  and  not  just  modes  of  interpreting  truth. 


292  SACRIFICE    OF   CHRIST. 

feels  that  they  are  simply  and  toiichingly  true  ;  but 
who,  except  in  the  overmastering  desire  to  maintain 
a  foregone  conclusion,  and  to  carry  out  a  one-sided 
scheme  of  thought,  could  have  imagined  that  this  or 
any  similar  passage  contained  the  strange  and  re- 
volting idea,  that  God  imputed  the  sins  of  men  to 
Jesus  the  Messiah,  laid  them  upon  him  and  put 
them  to  his  account,  and  that,  on  this  ground,  Jesus, 
as  the  substitute  of  sinners,  was  chargeable  with  the 
entire  amount  of  human  sins,  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end  of  time.  It  is  easy  to  utter  or  to  write  down 
this  language,  but  have  we  ever  calmly  put  before 
our  minds  what  it  really  involves.  To  impute  sin  to 
any  being,  must  mean  one  or  other  or  both  of  two 
things,  either  that  he  is  considered,  judged  to  be 
actually  guilty  of  the  sin  imputed  to  him,  or  that  he 
is  to  be  dealt  with  as  if  he  were  actually  guilty  of  it. 
Jesus  Christ  was  perfectly  holy  and  was  justly 
chargeable  with  no  sin  whatever,  against  God  or 
man.  That  is  an  admitted  fact ;  and  of  all  beings  in 
the  universe,  the  Omniscient  best  knew  the  fact.  To 
say  that  God  nevertheless  imputed  sin  to  Jesus,  that 
is,  considered,  judged,  thought  him  to  be  guilty  of 
sin,  is  direct  blasphemy.  The  thing  was  impossible, 
because  it  was  not  true,  in  no  sense  true,  and  God,  of 
all  beings,  knew  that  it  was  not  true. 

Sin  has  a  very  distinct  and  unambiguous  meaning, 
it  is  the  conscious  resistance  of  the  human  to  the 


SACRIFICE    OF   CHRIST.  293 

divine  will ;  or,  more  accurately  still,  it  is  tlie 
conscious  resistance  of  the  human  will  to  what 
is  known  to  be  true,  and  right,  and  good.  From 
its  very  nature  it  can  lie  nowhere  but  in  the  mind, 
it  is  the  conscious  act  of  the  mind,  and  nothing 
but  this ;  it  is  the  mind  desiring,  choosing,  purposing 
in  the  face  of  reason  and  conscience.  To  be  justly 
imputed  or  reckoned  to  any  being,  sin  must  be  the 
act  of  the  being.  It  cannot  be  deposited  within  him, 
like  some  material  substance,  in  a  chamber  or  a 
cellar,  and  it  cannot  be  put  on  him  or  affixed  to  him 
like  an  adhesion  on  his  person  or  his  dress.  If  it  be 
the  act  of  his  soul,  it  is  justly  imputed  to  him;  if  it  be 
not,  then  to  impute  it  to  him,  to  hold  that  he  is 
guilty  when  he  is  not,  is  an  atrocious  crime,  it  is  an 
utter  falsity  and  clear  unrighteousness.  The  idea  of 
putting  the  sins  of  a  being  who  is  guilty  on  or  in 
another  being  who  is  innocent,  of  making  the  innocent 
chargeable  with  them  and  putting  them  to  his  ac- 
count, would  be  gross  injustice  if  it  were  possible ; 
but  it  is  not  possible,  the  thing  is  a  pure,  sheer 
absurdity. 

In  the  sphere  of  pure  imagination,  very  wide 
licence  is  permitted  with  safety.  We  can  fancy  a 
tree  to  be  a  living  being,  and  can  readily  picture  it 
to  ourselves  as  such,  with  its  head,  and  feet,  and 
heart,  and  trunk,  and  arms,  and  limbs.  We  can 
fancy  it  endowed  with   the  power  of  speech,  and 


294  SACRIFICE   OF   CHRIST. 


rehearsing  to  the  night-winds  the  tale  of  its 
growth,  its  lost  companions,  the  storms  that  have 
swept  over  it,  and  the  springs,  and  summers,  and 
winters  it  has  seen.  But  in  the  sphere  of  reality 
there  can  be  no  licence,  one  single  step  beyond  truth 
and  fact.  Whatever  we  may  fancy,  we  can  never 
think,  never,  in  sane  mind,  judge  that  a  man  is  a 
beast  of  the  forest  or  an  eagle  of  the  sky.  And  were 
it  even  possible  in  some  moment  of  wild  aberration 
to  form  such  a  thought,  there  would  be  something 
more  frenzied,  and  more  outrageous  stiU,  in  building 
up  a  long  succession  and  a  complicated  system  of 
ideas,  on  the  absurd  basis  that  a  man  was  a  four- 
footed  beast  or  a  bird  of  the  air.  To  all  such  repre- 
sentations, as  that  God  thought,  judged,  reckoned 
Jesus  to  be  chargeable  with  the  sins  of  men,  or  that 
Jesus  had  the  sins  of  men  laid  on  him,  or  imputed  to 
him,  the  decisive  reply  must  be,  they  cannot  be  true, 
the  thing  they  assert  is  utterly  impossible  and 
absurd. 

The  question  is  asked,  ^dth  much  confidence,  ma} 
not  a  responsible  agent,  without  being  considered, 
judged  to  be  guilty  of  sin,  be,  nevertheless,  for  the 
sake  of  others  in  whom  he  is  interested,  dealt  with, 
treated,  as  if  he  were  guilty — especially,  may  he  not 
be  so  treated,  when  his  own  free  and  full  consent 
has  been  given  to  the  arrangement  ?  God  did  not 
and  could  not  judge,  consider  that  Jesus  was  charge- 


SACRIFICE   OF   CHRIST.  295 

able  with  the  sins  of  men  ;  but  did  He  not  treat  him, 
and  act  towards  him,  as  if  he  were  chargeable  with 
them  ?  It  is  quite  true,  and  a  common  enough  ex- 
perience in  our  world,  that  one  man  shall  become 
surety  for  another,  and  shall  make  himself  respon- 
sible for  the  payment  of  a  sum  of  money,  or  for  the 
performance  of  certain  services.  It  is  quite  true, 
also,  that,  failing  the  principal,  his  surety  is  bound 
in  law  to  pay  the  money,  and  to  secure  the  perform- 
ance of  the  stipulated  services.  But  even  in  this 
event  the  security  is  never  charged  with  any  crime, 
never  considered  or  reckoned,  guilty,  because  the 
principal  has  been  guilty.  The  security  must  bear, 
as  he  has  engaged  to  do,  the  consequences  of  the 
principal's  default,  but  that  is  all.  And  besides,  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  are  clear  and  well- 
understood  limits  even  to  this  vicarious  responsibility. 
If  an  individual  were  to  offer,  to  suffer  imprisonment 
or  banishment  or  death,  in  the  room  of  a  criminal 
who  had  been  sentenced  to  any  of  these  punishments, 
human  law,  and  every  righteous  human  judge,  would 
simply  and  instantly  reject  the  offer.  Such  a  thing 
could  not  be  tolerated  for  a  moment ;  it  is  abhorrent 
to  all  equity  and  all  justice.  Law  pronounces  that 
the  transgressor  shall  be  punished,  but  it  does  not 
recognise,  and  cannot  permit,  that  another,  innocent 
of  crime,  shall  be  punished  in  his  stead.  Is  it  pos- 
sible to  conceive  that  God  has  done  what  is  abhorrent 


296  SACRIFICE    OF   CHRIST. 

even  to  human  law,  and  still  more  to  the  natural 
conscience  of  man?  Is  it  possible  to  conceive  that 
God  should  treat  the  innocent  Saviour,  and  should 
act  towards  him  as  if  he  had  been  guilty  of  sin,  when 
he  had  not  ? 

We  are  told  that  the  dying  agony  of  Jesus  was 
not  owing  to  his  bodily  sufferings ;  nor  yet  to  the 
anguish  which  pierced  him,  when  he  thought  of  the 
sin  of  the  world,  which  was  even  then  exhibiting 
itself  in  so  revolting  a  form ;  nor  to  the  sense  of 
misappreciation  and  of  ingratitude  on  the  part  of 
the  beings  whom  he  loved ;  but  to  a  cause  far  more 
mysterious  and  awful,  to  the  secret  anger  of  God  the 
Father.  God,  acting  in  His  official,  judicial  char- 
acter, regarded  Jesus  as  the  substitute  of  sinners, 
and  poured  out  on  his  soul,  without  measure,  the 
vials  of  divine  wrath.  In  all  simplicity  and  earnest- 
ness, and  with  deep  reverence,  we  ask,  is  it  possible 
for  any  devout  soul  to  put  this  idea,  in  all  its  naked 
horror,  before  itself,  even  for  an  instant  ?  Can  the 
conception  be  endured  that  the  Great  God  was 
angry,  was  even  displeased,  in  any  sense,  on  any 
ground,  with  Jesus  on  the  cross  ?  That  moment 
which  needed,  above  all  others,  infinite  sympathy  and 
yearning  love,  was  it  the  chosen  moment  for  the  out- 
pouring of  cruel  and  unmerited  wrath  ?  It  is  impos- 
sible. Facts,  not  fancies  or  fictions,  must  be  dealt 
with  here.     All  are  agreed,  that  when  Jesus  hung  on 


SACRIFICE   OF   CHEIST.  297 

the  cross,  lie  was  perfectly  blameless  and  spotless, 
suffering,  but  suffering  unjustly.  He  was  then  ac- 
tually giving  the  last  proof  of  unconquerable  fidelity 
and  love  to  God  and  to  man  ;  and  what  is  still  more, 
he  was  then  actually  achieving  that  which  the  Father 
was  to  convert  into  the  mightiest  instrument  for 
touching  and  subduing  the  heart  of  man,  and  for 
reconciling  and  redeeming  the  world  to  Himself. 
These  are  the  facts  beyond  dispute.  Is  it  possible 
to  conceive  that,  instead  of  these,  God  saw  only  a 
mere  fiction  of  law,  and  acted  towards  Jesus  as  if  he 
were  a  guilty  being — the  guiltiest  of  all  the  guilty  ? 
Who  can  believe  it  ?  If  there  was  an  instant  in  the 
whole  life  of  Jesus,  when  God  must  have  been  in- 
finitely well  pleased  in  His  beloved  Son,  it  must  have 
been  then,  when  he  was  bearing  the  unmerited, 
illegal,  and  most  merciless  indignities  and  agonies 
of  crucifixion.  At  any  and  every  period  of  Christ's 
earthly  life,  anger  towards  him  on  the  part  of  God 
must  have  been  impossible,  because  there  never  was, 
or  could  be,  the  smallest  cause  for  such  a  sentiment ; 
but  on  the  cross,  when  he  was  offering  himself  to 
God,  a  willing  and  a  holy  sacrifice,  there  was  not 
only  no  cause  for  anger,  but  infinite  cause  for  divine 
satisfaction  and  joy. 

As  for  official,  judicial  anger,  what  does  it  mean  ? 
and  who  can  attach  even  the  shadow  of  an  idea  to  it, 
without  darkening  the  purity  and  the  honour  of  the 


298  SACRIFICE   OF   CHRIST. 

Almighty  ?  Are  we  to  imagine  that  He  was  really 
pleased,  but  officially  angry,  and  that  His  face  wore 
the  hypocrite's  mask — a  frown  put  on,  but  concealing 
a  true  delight  ?  It  is  inexpressibly  revolting  to  think 
that  the  Great  God  made-believe  that  He  was  wroth 
with  a  being  with  whom  He  was  altogether  satisfied, 
and  made-believe  that  He  saw  sin  in  him,  who  He 
knew  was  perfectly  sinless.  But  even  this  is  not  all, 
and  not  the  most  abhorrent.  Turning  to  the  other  side 
of  the  scholastic  dogma,  are  we  prepared  to  credit  the 
involved  assertion,  that  God  makes-believe  that  men 
are  sinless,  whose  own  hearts  tell  them  that  they  are 
very  sinful;  and  makes-believe  that  men  are  perfectly 
righteous,  who  He  knows  all  the  while  are  yet  unright- 
eous ?  It  cannot  be.  That  which  rests  not  on  plain 
fact,  but  on  legal  fictions — that  which  necessitates 
impossible  make -beliefs,  and  which  brings  no  evi- 
dence, but  only  gratuitous  assumptions,  cannot  be  of 
God,  but  must  be  wholly  of  man. 

Substitution,  not  in  a  fictitious,  but  in  a  beautiful 
and  noble  and  free  and  wide  sense,  is  not  unknown 
even  in  a  selfish  and  sinful  world.  Human  nature 
furnishes  marvellous  instances  of  self-sacrifice  for 
others,  by  the  aid  of  which  we  are  able  to  conceive 
the  higher  Divine  mystery.  The  mother  who  watches 
day  and  night  by  the  bed  of  her  child,  smitten  with 
a  deadly  plague,  who  lives  only  so  long  as  to  see  the 
dying  one  restored,  and  then  catches  the  mortal  in- 


SACRIFICE   OF   CHRIST.  299 

fection  and  dies !  The  father  clinging  to  the  prodigal, 
whom  all  besides  have  abandoned,  descending  with 
him,  without  partaking  his  guilt,  as  he  sinks  to  beg- 
gary and  crime,  pursuing  him  year  after  year  with 
tender  counsels,  or  with  silent  grief,  and  with  loving 
prayers  and  tears  and  looks,  and  who  dies  of  a  broken 
heart,  without  knowing  the  holy  change,  which  his 
death  at  last  produced !  The  youth  plunging  into  the 
deep  to  save  a  drowning  brother,  and  who,  after  incre- 
dible exertions,  reaches  him,  seizes  him,  is  able  only  to 
hold  him  up  till  other  help  arrives,  and  then  himself 
sinks  and  perishes !  The  physician,  knowing  certainly 
that  the  attempt  must  be  fatal,  but  would  as  certainly 
be  the  means  of  saving  life  to  the  community,  delibe- 
rately going  alone  into  the  room  where  lay  a  dead 
body  which  contained  the  secret  of  a  then  unknown 
and  terrific  disease,  opening  the  body,  discovering 
the  seat  and  nature  of  the  disease,  writing  what  he 
had  discovered,  affixing  the  writing  to  the  dead  body^ 
that  it  might  be  found  at  once  by  the  first  who  en- 
tered the  room,  and  who  then  simi)ly  laid  him  down 
and  died ! 

These  are  among  the  known  examples,  not  indeed 
of  vicarious  sin,  for  that  is  for  ever,  absolutely  im- 
possible, but  of  vicarious  suffering.  These  are  glow- 
irtg  flashes  of  love  from  heaven  in  a  dark  and  cold 
world.  There  must  be  an  Eternal  sun  of  love,  out 
from  which  these  are  scattered  and  imperfect  radia- 


300  SACRIFICE   OP   CHRIST. 


tions ;  there  must  be  a  parent  fountain  of  pure,  infinite 
generosity,  an  original  form  and  type  of  moral  no- 
bility. God  is  perfect  love,  God  must  be  essentially, 
eternally,  self-sacrificing.  His  rational  creatures,  His 
children,  the  souls  He  hath  made,  are  unutterably 
dear  to  Him,  and  within  the  limits  of  truth  and  right, 
there  is  nothing  which  He  is  not  willing  to  do  for 
them.  Their  true  blessedness,  the  perfect  salvation 
and  the  progressive  development  of  their  entire  nature 
as  He  first  fashioned  it,  is  the  end  and  the  joy  of  the 
infinite  Father. 

Amidst  the  reign  of  eternal  laws,  which  never  are 
or  can  be  violated ;  under  the  sway  of  eternal  justice, 
which  proclaims  and  secures  that  sin  is  death,  and 
that  only  holiness  is  life,  it  abides  for  ever  true  that 
God  is  love,  self-sacrificing  love ;  and  the  last  and 
highest  utterance  of  God's  love  is  Christ  —  the 
spoken,  articulated  Word,  (Logos,)  within  which  lies 
the  sublime  idea,  God. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  human  in  our  great  Ee- 
deemer  was  not  a  mere  passive  instrument,  but  a 
perfectly  voluntary  agent.  The  human  will,  not 
passively,  but  freely  and  gladly  harmonised  with  the 
Divine,  and  when  death  was  inevitable  Jesus  volun- 
tarily and  wholly  gave  himself  up  to  God,  for  the 
accomplishment  of  God's  purposes,  an  offering  and  a 
sacrifice  of  a  sweet  smelling  savour.  But  it  abides 
none  the  less  true,  that  in  the  highest   sense  the 


SACRIFICE    OF   CHRIST.  301 

sacrifice  for  men  was  made  by  God.  Christ  was 
God's,  Christ  was  God,  God  in  the  form  of  man,  God 
expressed  and  pronounced,  so  far  as  it  was  possible 
for  a  created  medium  to  give  forth  the  uncreated 
reality.  The  infinite  Father,  in  boundless  pity,  looked 
down  on  His  undutiful  children,  and  yearned  to  rescue 
them,  by  regaining  their  hearts,  and  drawing  them 
back  to  allegiance  and  to  peace.  With  God-like 
mercy,  He  unveiled  all  which  was  possible  of  Divine 
purity,  and  truth,  and  beauty,  and  sweetness,  and 
lovingness,  and  compassion — He  humbled  Himself, 
descended  to  the  level  of  His  creatures,  walked  among 
them,  spoke  with  them  face  to  face,  and  appealed  as 
He  still  continues  to  appeal  to  their  hearts,  through 
the  gentleness,  the  tenderness,  the  wisdom,  the  meek- 
ness, the  patience,  the  sufferings,  the  tears,  the  blood, 
and  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  distinction  here  is  radical  and  fundamental.^ 
The  sacrifice  was  not  offered  up  by  men  at  all,  or  by 
a  substitute  in  their  room,  and  it  was  not  required  to 
appease  God's  anger,  or  to  satisfy  His  justice,  or  to 

^  In  a  work  of  great  beauty  and  truth,  and  the  fruit  of  much 
spiritual  experience,  Mr  Campbell  adheres  to  the  central  idea  of  the 
scholastic  atonement.  He  fancies  that  in  Christ's  awful  sense  of 
human  sin,  and  his  vicarious  repentance  on  account  of  it,  God  found 
that  satisfaction  which  His  justice  demanded,  and  on  the  ground  of 
which  He  could  righteously  forgive.  With  great  respect,  I  am  un- 
able to  look  on  this,  as  any  other  than  a  beautiful  and  pious  illusion, 
but  an  illusion,  a  mere  illusion. 

See  "Nature  of  the  Atonement,"  Macmillan,  London,  1856. 


302  SACRIFICE   OF   CHRIST. 

render  Him  propitious.  The  sacrifice  was  not  offered 
by  men  to  God,  but  was  made  by  God  for  men, 
wholly  and  solely  made  by  God  for  men,  and  for  sin, 
in  order  that  sin  might  be  for  ever  put  down,  and 
rooted  out  of  human  nature.  This  stupendous  act  of 
Divine  sacrifice  was  God's  instrument  of  reconciliation 
and  redemption,  God's  method  of  conquering  the 
human  heart,  and  of  subduing  a  revolted  world  and 
attaching  it  to  His  throne — pure  love,  self-sacrificing 
love,  crucified,  dying  love !  "  For  God  so  loved  the 
world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son,  that  who- 
soever believeth  in  him  should  not  perish,  but  have 
everlasting  life." 


CHAPTER  X. 

SACRIFICIAL    TERMS  AND  ALLUSIONS   IN   THE  NEW 
TESTAMENT. 

Section  First.— The  Epistles. 

Section  Second. — Acts  of  the  Apostles. 

Section  Thiud.— The  Gospei^. 


SECTION  FIRST — THE  EPISTLES.  ^ 

WriUen  by  Jews — Addressed,  First,  to  Jews — Jewish  Phraseology 
and  Imagery,  Inevitable — Exposition  of  Passages — Beautiful, 
Natural  Sense — Christ's  Death,  and  Ancient  Sacrifices — Epistle 
to  Hebrews — Typical  Language — Use  and  Abuse — Apostolic 
Gospel. 

IT  would  have  been  unnatural,  if  not  really  impos- 
sible, for  the  first  teachers  of  Christianity,  in 
their  spoken  or  written  utterances  respecting  the  new 
kingdom  of  God,  to  have  avoided  frequent  reference 
to  the  earlier  dispensation  of  Moses.  They  were 
Jews,  all,  without  exception,  Jews,  and  this  single 
fact  throws  light  on  several  of  the  peculiarities  of  the 
New  Testament.     The  heavenly  truth  uttered  by  the 

^  In  order  to  the  faithful  discussion  of  the  subject  of  this  chap- 
ter, I  have  specially  gone  over  the  whole  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  have  endeavoured  to  note  every  passage  in  which  Christ's  death 
for  sin  is  mentioned  or  alluded  to.  One  or  more  passages  may 
have  been  overlooked,  but  I  am  not  aware  of  any  omission,  and 
must  think  it  at  least  not  probable.  Necessarily  only  a  few  out  of 
very  many  passages  are  quoted ;  but  I  believe  that  all  the  texts, 
without  exception,  which  are  usually  supposed  to  bear  most  strongly 
in  favour  of  artificial  theology,  will  be  found  in  the  succeeding 
jmges. 

U 


30G  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND   ALLUSIONS 

Kedeemer  fell  into  minds  necessarily  influenced  very 
strongly  by  the  associations,  the  ideas,  and  the  spirit 
of  Judaism.  The  thoughts  of  the  first  apostles  and 
|)rGachers  respecting  Christ's  gospel,  like  all  new 
thoughts  in  any  mind,  connected  themselves,  of  ne- 
cessity, with  their  earlier  experiences  and  knowledge, 
and  were  modified  by  them  to  a  large  extent.  In 
attempting  to  conceive  fresh  truth,  we  are  forced  to 
relate  it,  by  one  means  or  another,  to  the  previous 
contents  of  our  minds,  and  to  attach  it,  as  closely  as 
possible,  to  familiar  associations,  images,  phrases,  and 
terms.  These  images  and  terms,  in  their  new  rela- 
tions, may  mean  more  than  they  at  first  contained, 
they  may  even  mean  something  quite  diff'erent ;  but 
the  old  speech,  wisely  accommodated  and  adapted,  is 
the  happiest,  as  it  is  the  readiest,  which  we  can  use  in 
order  to  present  to  our  own  minds,  or  to  others,  intel- 
ligently and  interestingly,  a  new  meaning,  which  we 
have  come  to  apprehend.  The  apostles  would  have 
acted  unnaturally  if,  in  speaking  of  Christ,  they  had 
not  often  gone  back  to  the  temple,  and  the  altar,  and 
the  sacrifices,  and  the  blood. 

Another  thing  must  be  borne  in  mind,  that  the 
first  Christian  preachers  and  writers,  themselves 
Jews,  addressed  Jews ;  at  the  least,  first  of  all,  they 
addressed  Jews.  And  there  was  certainly  no  way  in 
which  they  could  approach  their  kinsmen  according 
to  the  flesh,  with  such  marked  advantage,  as  on  the 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  307 

side  of  Judaism.  Comparisons  or  contrasts  between 
the  earlier  and  the  later  truth,  references  to  ancient 
facts  and  types,  the  frequent  use  of  words  and  phrases 
which  had  been  consecrated  in  Judea  for  ages,  were 
inevitable,  without  doing  violence  to  nature,  and  to 
all  the  laws  of  human  thought  and  speech.  We  are 
compelled  to  think  that  the  fresh,  glad  tidings  of 
Heaven's  mercy  could  not  possibly  have  been  given 
forth,  first  of  all,  save  in  Jewish  phrase  and  form, 
and  that,  first  of  all,  Christ  must,  of  necessity,  have 
been  preached  through  the  voice,  and  the  institutions, 
and  the  spirit  of  Moses. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  a  certain  amount  of  dis- 
advantage, and  of  danger,  was  inseparable  from 
this  fact.  In  the  application,  however  skilfully,  of 
old  language  to  new  thoughts,  there  was  a  risk 
that  to  some,  perhaps  to  many  minds,  the  old 
and  not  the  new  ideas  might  be  suggested.  And 
then,  in  the  use,  however  wise,  of  imagery,  and  me- 
taphor, and  type,  there  was  the  further  risk,  that 
what  was  meant  for  figure  might  be  taken  for  fact, 
and  that  what  was  announced  as  the  antitype  of  an 
ancient  symbol,  might  be  conceived  to  be  a  mere 
repetition  of  that  symbol,  instead  of  a  totally  differ- 
ent, and  higher,  and  purer  reality.  It  is  very  ob- 
vious that  the  kind  of  danger  here  supposed  must  be 
enhanced  a  thousandfold,  when  a  piece  of  writing  is 
placed,  as  the  New  Testament  is,  before  men,  all 


308  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND    ALLUSIONS 

whose  associations,  and  experiences,  and  modes  of 
thinking,  and  actual  knowledge,  are  wholly  different 
from  those,  as  well  as  of  the  writers  of  the  piece,  as 
of  the  persons  to  whom  it  was  originally  addressed. 
Hence  the  necessity,  in  all  cases,  for  discriminating, 
temperate,  cautious,  and  modest  criticism  of  the  New 
Testament,  in  the  absence  of  which  the  gravest  errors, 
and  the  wildest  extravagance  of  interpretation,  may 
be  pronounced  inevitable. 

We  turn  to  some  of  the  more  familiar  terms  and 
phrases  of  the  New  Testament  wliich  are  imagined 
to  involve  the  idea  of  satisfaction.  ''  His  name  shall 
be  called  Jesus,  for  he  shall  save  his  people  from 
their  sins.''  He  came  "  to  seek  and  to  save  that 
which  was  lost."  "  He  is  able  to  save  to  the  utter- 
most." "  He  died  for  us."  "  He  loved  us,  and  gave 
himself  for  us."  "  He  was  delivered  for  our  offences." 
*' Christ  died  for  the  imgodly."  "While  we  were 
yet  sinners  Christ  died  for  us."  "  He  died  for  our 
sins,  according  to  the  Scriptures."  "  Christ  loved 
the  Church,  and  gave  himself  for  it."  "  He  came 
into  the  world  to  save  sinners,  even  the  chief."  ''  He 
put  away  sin,  by  the  sacrifice  of  himself."  "  We  are 
redeemed  with  the  precious  blood  of  Christ,  as  of  a 
lamb  without  blemish  and  without  spot."  "We  have 
redemption  through  his  blood,  the  forgiveness  of  sins, 
according  to  the  riches  of  his  grace."  "  He  bare  our 
sins  in  his  own  body  on  the  tree."     "  Christ  hath 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  309 

redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of  the  law,  being  made 
a  curse  for  us  ;  for  it  is  written,  Cursed  is  every  one 
that  hangeth  on  a  tree."  "  Christ  also  suffered  for 
sins,  the  just  for  the  unjust."  All  these,  and  other 
similar  forms  of  expression,  bear  a  beautiful  and 
direct  meaning,  quite  apart  from  the  idea  of  satis- 
faction to  justice — which,  on  the  contrary,  would 
entirely  change  and  ruin  their  own  simple  and  touch- 
ing sense.  The  entire  life  of  Christ  on  earth,  we 
have  seen,  was  sacrificial,  substitutionary,  and  vica- 
rious; its  deep  and  sole  ground  was  love  of  man, 
based  on  the  fact  of  mans  sin,  which  created  the 
need  of  redemption.  All  in  all,  Christ  was  a  mere, 
pure  sacrifice,  and  nothing  but  a  sacrifice — a  sacrifice 
to  God ;  but  more  truly  still,  and  in  the  highest  sense 
of  all,  a  sacrifice  made  by  God  for  men.  Christ 
lived,  emphatically  he  died,  wholly  and  solely  for 
men  and  for  sin ;  to  put  away  sin,  to  redeem  the 
human  soul  from  sin — not  so  much  from  punish- 
ment, which  was  only  a  secondary  result,  but  from 
sin.  The  texts  quoted  above  express,  in  varying 
form,  these  imperishable  thoughts.  And  nothing 
but  an  acquired  and  artificial  scheme  and  habit  of 
thought  prevents  this  from  being  perceived  at  once. 
We  have  been  so  trained  to  associate  a  peculiar 
sacrcdness  with  certain  scholastic  distinctions  and 
divisions,  that  when  we  open  the  New  Testament,  it 
is  almost  impossible  for  us  not  to  force  into  its  terms 


310  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND    ALLUSIONS 

what  they  could  never  of  themselves  have  suggested, 
what  indeed  is  entirely  destructive  of  their  natural 
meaning.  It  is  like  an  introduction  to  a  new  world, 
like  breathing  a  pure,  divine  air,  when  we  break 
through  the  imprisonment  and  the  fetters  of  a  merely 
human  system,  and  stand  beneath  the  free  light  of 
heaven,  and  look  with  our  own  eyes  on  the  glorious, 
spiritual  revelations  spread  out  before  us  by  the  Only 
Wise  and  True. 

There  are  three  passages  in  the  New  Testament 
in  which  we  find  a  word  of  much  greater  force  than 
in  any  of  those  already  brought  forward.  "  Whom 
God  hath  set  forth,  a  propitiation,  ikaaTrjpLov, 
through  faith  in  his  blood." i  "He  is  the  propiti- 
ation, ikaaixo^,  for  our  sins."2  "  God  sent  His  Son 
to  be  the  propitiation,  iXaafi6<;,  for  our  sins."  3  It  is 
unnecessary  to  notice  the  distinction  between  the  two 
words  here  employed,  which  have  the  same  root,  and 
amount  to  the  same  sense.  The  Pagan  meaning  of 
/XacryLto?  is  undoubted ;  the  word  was  constantly  used 
by  Pagan  writers  to  mark  the  supposed  effect  of 
sacrifices,  in  propitiating  the  gods  to  whom  they 
were  offered.  But  we  have  to  recall  the  fact,  that 
the  Jewish  translators  ^  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures 
into  Greek,  in  rendering  the  distinctive  word  Kaphar, 
employed  the  term  IXaafxh^,  while  at  the  same  time 

^  Rom.  iii.  tiS.  ^  1  John  ii.  2. 

^  1  John  iv.  10.  4  gee  p^  234. 


IN  THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  311 

it  was  proved,  by  several  undoubted  examples,  that 
this  common  Pagan  sacrificial  term  was  not  used  by 
them  at  all  in  the  Pagan  sense,  but  in  a  sense  most 
widely  dififerent.  Precisely  on  the  same  grounds,  we 
argue  that  while  the  inspired  writers  of  the  New 
Testament  used  the  accepted,  sacrificial  word  tkaa- 
/io9,  this  is  no  proof  that  they  used  it  in  the  accepted 
meaning.  That  meaning,  as  accepted  by  the  Pagan 
world,  was  throughout  an  utter  falsity.  They  were 
no  gods  to  whom  the  Pagan  sacrifices  were  offered  ; 
the  anger  which  it  was  sought  to  appease,  by  means 
of  these  sacrifices,  was  all  unreal,  and  the  appeasing 
efi'ect  was  mere  4elusion.  But  the  apostles  of  Chris- 
tianity had  something  real  and  true  and  great  to 
announce,  in  the  room  of  the  falsities  and  fancies  of 
Paganism.  There  was  a  real  God,  a  real  hatred  of 
sin,  but  at  the  same  time  a  real  and  infinite  love  of 
the  human  soul.  There  was  also  a  real  propitiation, 
but  immeasurably  far  away  from  that  which  the  be- 
wildered and  distorted  Pagan  mind  had  pictured. 
Instead  of  the  fiction  of  an  incensed  Jupiter  or  Pluto, 
there  was  seen  on  earth  the  image  of  the  brightness 
of  the  God  of  love.  Christ  came  not  to  appease 
anger,  for  it  was  owing  solely  to  the  unprompted 
and  unbounded  mercy  of  the  Father,  that  he  ever 
lived,  and  that  at  last  he  died  on  a  cross,  but  to  be 
the  wondrous  medium  of  reconciling  and  restoring 
human  hearts  to  Him  from  whom  they  had  revolted. 


312  SACRIFICIAL   TEEMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

Incarnate  love, — bleeding,  dying  love,  is  the  power 
whereby  God  is  recovering  the  world  to  Himself. 

The  inspired  writers  of  the  New  Testament  liken 
the  death  of  Christ  on  the  cross  to  the  animal  sacri- 
fices under  the  law  of  Moses,  and  compare  and  con- 
trast the  two  in  manifold  forms.  There  is  no 
evidence,  that  any  such  similitude  was  ever  imagined 
during  the  course  of  the  Jewish  dispensation  itself. 
The  fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah  and  the  twenty- 
second  Psalm,  certainly,  and  in  the  strongest  form, 
do  noio  suggest  the  idea  of  a  suffering,  as  well  as  of 
a  conquering  King,  and  we,  with  the  gospels  in  our 
hands,  have  no  difficulty  in  applying  these  holy 
oracles  to  our  blessed  Lord,  and  can  only  marvel  at 
their  touching  beauty  and  their  exact  truth.  But 
whatever  meaning  the  seer  and  the  singer  of  old  may 
have  attached  at  the  time  to  their  own  words,  and 
however  piously  they  may  have  searched  "  what, 
or  what  manner  of  time  the  Spirit  of  Christ  which 
was  in  them  did  signify,  when  it  testified  beforehand 
the  sufferings  of  Christ,  and  the  glory  which  should 
follow,"  it  must  have  been  impossible  for  them,  as 
has  already  been  shown,  to  have  formed  the  faintest 
conception  of  anything  like  a  Messiah  offered  up  in 
sacrifice,  as  animals  were  anciently  offered  up  and 
slain  on  the  altar.  If  any  ancient  Jew  succeeded  in 
reaching  such  a  preconception,  and  was  able  to  regard 
his  bloody  offerings  as  typical  of  a  more  bloody  offering 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  313 

still,  to  be  laid  on  some  future  altar  in  the  distant  ages 
to  come,  this  at  least  is  certain,  that  no  record  of  the 
fact  can  be  found,  from  which  there  is  ground  further 
to  conclude,  that  a  fact  of  the  kind  never  existed. 

Even  the  words  of  Jesus  to  his  disciples,  after  the 
resurrection,  confirm  this  conclusion.  "  0  fools,  and 
slow  of  heart  to  believe  all  that  the  prophets  have 
spoken!  Ought  not  (the)  Christ  to  have  suffered 
these  things,  and  to  enter  into  his  glory  ?  And  be- 
ginning at  Moses,  and  all  the  prophets,  he  expounded 
to  them  in  all  the  Scriptures  the  things  concerning 
himself."  Looking  back  on  the  ancient  Scriptures, 
in  the  light  which  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  throw 
on  them,  the  blindness  to  us  is  unaccountable  which 
failed  to  perceive  that  the  Messiah  must  needs  suffer, 
and  we  do  not  wonder  at  the  implied  rebuke  uttered 
by  the  Saviour.  But  we  must  not  forget,  at  the 
same  time,  how  incongruous  and  seemingly  blas- 
phemous the  idea  was  to  the  Jewish  mind.  Perhaps 
of  all  men  in  Judea,  or  elsewhere  in  that  age,  the 
disciples,  pre-eminently,  were  placed  in  circumstances 
the  most  likely  to  remove  the  deep  repugnance  to 
this  idea,  and  to  reveal  its  truth.  But  even  they 
were  utterly  blind  to  the  last,  foolish  and  sottish, 
as  all  their  fathers  had  been. 

It  was  marvellously  different,  when  the  higher 
illumination  of  the  Holy  Ghost  had  fallen  on  their 
minds.     We  open  the  New  Testament,  and  there  we 


314  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

cannot  fail  to  see  that  Christ's  death  is  often  and 
closely  associated  in  the  minds  of  the  writers  with 
the  altar  and  its  offerings.  "  Christ,  our  passover,  is 
sacrificed  for  us."  "  We  have  an  altar."  "  He  was 
once  offered  to  bear  the  sins  of  many."  "  He  gave 
himself  a  ransom  for  all,  to  be  testified  in  due  time." 
Nothing  could  be  more  thoroughly  natural  in  the  cir- 
cumstances, and  nothing  more  inevitable,  than  such 
language,  conveying,  however,  a  very  different  and  a 
far  higher  truth,  though  at  the  same  time,  one  which 
bore  a  striking  analogy  in  some  obvious  points  to  the 
ancient  symbols.  But  in  addition  to  these  scattered 
and  occasional  phrases,  one  entire  epistle,  not  a  short 
one,  specially  and  significantly  addressed  to  Hebrews, 
is  occupied  with  an  extended  and  minute  compari- 
son between  Judaism  and  Christianity,  pointing  out, 
wherever  it  is  possible,  their  points  of  resemblance ; 
but  also,  and  not  less  faithfully,  their  points  of  con- 
trast. Christ  is  compared  with  Moses,  with  Mel- 
chisedec,  with  Aaron,  and  w^ith  the  Jewish  priesthood 
as  a  Divine  Institute:  the  ancient  temple,  with  its 
compartments,  and  its  utensils,  and  its  officers  of 
various  orders,  and  its  endless  ceremonies  and  rites 
are  graphically  described,  and  largely  made  use  of 
for  the  purposes  of  illustration.  The  epistle  is  of 
necessity  intensely  Jewish.  It  is  a  Jew  specially  and 
formally  addressing  Jews,  in  language,  and  through 
associations  and  experiences  which  to  both  were  most 


IN   THE   NEW    TESTAMENT.  315 

endeared  and  most  sacred.  It  is  a  Jew  seeking  to 
introduce  Christian  truth  into  Jewish  minds,  through 
Jewish  channels,  and  in  many  forms  Christ's  death  is 
brought  into  relation  with  ancient  sacrifices.  "  Once 
in  the  end  of  the  world  hath  he  appeared  to  put 
away  sin  by  the  sacrifice  of  himself.''  "  This  man, 
after  he  had  offered  one  sacrifice  for  sin,  for  ever  sat 
down  on  the  right  hand  of  God."  "  By  one  offering 
he  hath  for  ever  perfected  all  them  that  are  sancti- 
fied." "  Jesus,  that  he  might  sanctify  the  people 
with  his  own  blood,  suffered  without  the  gate." 

The  words  of  John  Baptist,  though  out  of  their 
proper  order  in  this  place,  may  be  noted  as  convey- 
ing perhaps  the  most  expressive  statement  in  this 
relation,  to  be  found  in  the  New  Testament,  more 
expressive  and  significant  by  far,  than  those  just 
quoted  from  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  "Be- 
hold the  Lamb  of  God,  wdio  is  taking  aw^ay  the 
sin  of  the  w^orld."  It  is  the  natural,  instinctive, 
fervent  utterance  of  a  pious  Jew,  on  first  beholding 
him  whom  he  knew  to  be  the  promised  Messiah. 
This  was  God's  Lamb,  God's  sacrifice,  though  how 
and  in  what  sense  or  in  what  form,  John  could  not 
know,  for  there  was  no  apparent  similarity  between 
the  type  and  the  antitype.  Here  w^as  no  literal  lamb, 
no  beast  but  a  rational  man ;  here  was  no  doomed 
sacrifice  on  the  altar  awaiting  the  sacrificial  knife,  but 
a  youthful,  hopeful,  vigorous  life,  just  entering  on  a 


316  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND    ALLUSIONS 

wondrous  course  of  active  service.  It  would  be  most 
gratuitous  to  fancy,  that  John  foresaw  the  tragical 
close  of  our  Lord's  life.  There  is  not  a  word  or  even 
a  distant  hint  to  favour  such  an  idea,  and  there  is 
nothing  in  the  circumstances  to  lead  us  to  suppose  it. 
But  John  certainly  did  believe,  for  the  words  can 
mean  nothing  else,  that  this  living  man  was  God's 
Lamb,  somehow, — the  true  and  only  spiritual  antitype 
of  the  sacrifices  under  the  law  of  Moses.  What  is 
yet  more,  John  afhrmed  that  this  divine  Lamb,  at  the 
moment  when  he  spoke,  was  taking  away,  and  was 
destined  to  take  away,  the  sin  of  the  world.  Never 
had  lamb  or  sacrifice  of  any  kind  effected  such  a  pur- 
pose. In  this  respect,  as  we  have  already  shown,  the 
ancient  sacrifices  were  as  dark,  as  vague,  and  as 
empty  of  meaning  as  a  very  shadow  is  of  substance. 
But  this  divine  Lamb,  unlike  the  ancient  victims,  was 
no  shadow,  but  a  substance,  a  glorious  spiritual 
reality,  and  was  to  secure  an  end  which  sacrifices  not 
only  never  could  have  efi'ected,  but  were  never  meant 
to  effect.  Christ  came  not  nominally,  or  formally,  or 
judicially,  but  really,  literally,  and  for  ever  to  take 
away  the  sin  of  the  world — to  root  it  out  of  the  world's 
heart,  out  of  the  world's  life — to  kill  by  his  life  and 
his  death  the  evil  which  was  killing  the  soul — to 
cleanse  and  revivify  humanity — to  send  through  it  a 
healthful  pulse  of  love  and  purity,  and  to  mature  it 
for  an  immortal  and  blessed  life  in  the  eternal  ages. 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  317 

The  language  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
is  throughout  intensely  typical,  and  the  subject 
of  Scripture-types  is  pre-eminently  one  which  de- 
mands delicate  and  cautious  treatment,  such  as,  un- 
happily, it  has  not  always  received.  In  the  nature 
of  the  study  itself,  there  is  strong  temptation  to 
indulge  a  prurient  ingenuity  and  a  licentious  ima- 
gination ;  and  some  of  the  most  extravagant,  and 
wdld,  and  even  ludicrous  examples  of  so-called  re- 
ligious writing  are  supplied  by  students  of  this 
branch  of  sacred  literature.  Even  the  severest  theo- 
logians are  apt  to  stray  when  they  venture  on  this 
dangerous  ground.  A  vast  science  of  typology  has 
been  constructed  on  what  might  have  been  judged 
a  very  slender  basis.  We  have  typical  individuals 
and  typical  classes  of  persons,  typical  facts,  typi- 
cal purifications,  and  typical  seasons ;  and  with 
laborious  ingenuity  an  ample  codex  has  been  drawn 
up  of  rules  or  canons  of  typical  interpretation.  It 
is  remarkable  that  in  the  Scriptures  themselves, 
no  special  attention  is  drawn  to  types,  as  if  they  had 
some  profound,  mystical,  spiritual  meaning,  and  as  if 
God  spoke  through  them  with  the  desire  of  awaken- 
ing a  peculiar  reverence.  The  New  Testament  writers, 
on  the  contrary,  often  refer  to  the  whole  of  the 
ancient  institutions  in  a  tone  by  no  means  indicating 
either  affection  or  respect.  "  Stand  fast  in  the  liberty 
wherewith  Christ  has  made  us  free,  and  be  not  en- 


318  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND    ALLUSIONS 

tangled  again  with  tlie  yoke  of  bondage."  i  Judaism, 
in  the  thought  of  inspired  men,  was  a  yoke  of  bond- 
age; a  most  galling  yoke,  also,  it  appears;  for  even 
the  apostle  Peter,  who  was  not  the  least  Judaistic  of 
the  twelve,  besought  the  assembled  church  of  Jeru- 
salem "  not  to  tempt  God,  and  not  to  put  a  yoke  on 
the  neck  of  the  (Gentile)  disciples,  which  neither  our 
fathers  nor  we  were  able  to  bear."  2  «'  Let  no  man 
therefore  judge  you  in  meat,  or  in  drink,  or  in  respect 
of  an  holiday,  or  of  the  new-moon,  or  of  the  Sabbath- 
days  ;  which  are  a  shadow  of  things  to  come ;  but 
the  body  (substance)  is  of  Christ."  ^  The  law  had  a 
"  shadow  of  good  things  to  come,  and  not  the  very 
image  of  the  things."  ^  A  shadow  is  the  most  dim, 
vague,  superficial,  unlifelike,  unreal  representation 
which  can  be  given  of  a  substance,  showing  only  the 
mere  outline,  and  even  that,  generally,  in  a  distorted 
and  untrustworthy  form.  No  one  in  his  senses  would 
seek  the  shadow,  in  order  to  correct  and  complete  his 
idea  of  a  substance  which  was  before  him. 

The  peculiar  word  "  type,"  which  is  deemed  so 
sacred,  and  which  has  been  guarded  by  exact  and 
nice  definitions  and  canons,  is  used  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  the  most  general  and  free  manner  possible, 
certainly  without  any  precision,  or  sanctity  of  mean- 
ing.     "Brethren,  be  followers  together  of  me,  and 

1  Gal.  V.  1.  «  Acts  XV.  10, 

3  Col.  ii.  16.  *  Heb.  X.  1. 


IN   THE    NEW   TESTAMENT.  319 

mark  them  who  walk  so,  as  ye  have  us  for  an 
example,"  (type.)i  "  So  that  ye  were  examples 
(types)  to  all  that  believe  in  Macedonia  and  Achaia/'^ 
"  Not  because  we  have  not  power,  but  to  make 
ourselves  an  example  (type)  unto  you  to  follow  us/'^ 
"Be  thou  an  example  (type)  of  the  believers,  in 
word,  in  conversation,  in  charity,  in  spirit,  in  faith, 
in  purity."*  "  Neither  as  being  lords  over  God's 
heritage,  but  being  examples  (types)  to  the  flock."^ 
"  Moreover,  brethren,  I  would  not  that  ye  should  be 
ignorant,  how  that  all  our  fathers  were  under  the 
cloud,  and  all  passed  through  the  sea ;  and  were  all 
baptized  unto  Moses,  in  the  cloud  and  in  the  sea ;  and 
did  all  eat  the  same  spiritual  meat" — referring  to 
the  manna,  a  spiritual,  that  is  a  preternatural  gift 
from  Heaven — "  and  did  all  drink  the  same  spiritual 
drink  " — 'referring  to  the  water  supernaturally  struck 
out  of  the  rock — ''  for  they  drank  of  that  spiritual 
Kock  that  followed  them  ;  and  that  Eock  was  Christ. 
....  Now  these  things  were  our  examples,  (types,) 
to  the  intent  we  should  not  lust  after  evil  things,  as 
they  also  lusted.  Neither  be  ye  idolaters,  as  were 
some  of  them Neither  let  us  commit  forni- 
cation, as  some  of  them  committed Neither 

murmur  ye,  as  some  of  them  also  murmured 

Now    all   these    things    happened  unto    them    for 

1  Phil.  iv.  17.  2  1  rriiess.  i.  7.  »  2  Thess.  iii.  9. 

*  1  Tim.  iv.  12.  «  1  Peter  v.  3. 


320  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

examples/'  (types. )i  To  show  beyond  doubt  the  true 
and  sole  intent  of  these,  and  of  all  tj^pes,  the  apostle 
immediately  adds,  "and  they  are  written  for  our 
admonition,  on  whom  the  ends  of  the  world  (the  last 
of  the  ages)  have  come."  It  is  precisely  the  thought, 
almost  in  the  very  words,  expressed  by  the  same 
writer  in  another  passage,  only  with  a  mucli  more 
extended  application.  "  Whatsoever  things  were 
written  aforetime,  were  written  for  our  learning; 
that  we,  through  patience  and  admonition  of  the 
Scriptures,  might  have  hope."^  That  is  to  say,  the 
recorded  facts  of  the  Israelitish  history,  their  national 
annals  and  their  religious  experiences,  and  worship, 
and  faith,  and  not  these  only,  but  all  the  ancient 
Scriptures,  in  all  their  various  parts,  are  designed  to 
convey  to  future  times  instruction,  and  guidance,  and 
encouragement,  and  warning.  It  can  hardly  fail  to 
occur  to  us  that  ordinary  human  history,  in  its 
measure,  serves  the  same  great  purpose.  History 
hands  down  to  succeeding  ages  a  series  of  types  of 
humanity,  it  forms  a  permanent  fund  of  precious 
instruction,  it  is  an  extended  foreshadowing  of  human 
character,  ever  repeating  itself,  and  of  human  experi- 
ences, and  of  human  destinies. 

But  while  all  sacred  Scripture  and  all  wise  secular 
writing  are  profitable  for  our  learning,  it  deserves  to 
be  noted,  besides,  that  the  facts  of  daily  life,  and  the 

1  1  Cor.  X.  1-11.  2  p^ojjj_  ^^^  4^ 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  321 

objects  and  operations  of  nature,  are  a  medium  of 
what  may  legitimately  be  called  typical  teaching. 
Providence  and  nature  are  full  of  similitudes,  simili- 
tudes of  beautiful  and  profound  meaning  to  the 
purified  vision.  There  is  a  marvellous,  universal 
homogeneity  in  creation,  throughout  all  its  depart- 
ments of  brute  matter,  and  of  vegetable,  animal, 
rational,  moral,  and  spiritual  life,  and  even  the  dullest 
eye  cannot  fail  to  detect  some  of  its  patent  analogies 
and  images.  The  beauty  of  poetry  is  the  revelation 
of  a  hidden  and  higher  meaning  in  common  things. 
It  is  a  rare  gift  of  God  to  some  peculiar  souls,  an 
enviable  and  much  envied  faculty,  which  "  finds 
tongues  in  trees,  books  in  the  running  brooks,  ser- 
mons in  stones,  and  good  in  everything."  But  this 
faculty  is  prone  to  be  impatient  of  the  obtuseness 
and  blindness  of  common  men,  and  to  frown  con- 
temptuously on  human  reason,  and  especially  on 
human  judgment,  with  its  cautious  and  slow  processes, 
most  galling  to  the  quicker  force  of  insight.  One 
man  shall  see  at  a  glance  the  wealth  of  Peru  in  a 
mine,  which  to  another  is  only  dull  clay,  or  worthless 
stone  or  sand,  though,  perhaps,  were  the  mine 
actually  worked,  it  might  eventually  turn  out  that 
all  was  not  really  gold  which  once  glittered  to  the 
imagination.  Specially  gifted  mindg,  not  without 
some  counterbalance,  find  their  own  reward,  a  rich 
one,  in  iJiemselves.     In  relation  to  Scripture,  and  the 


322  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND    ALLUSIONS 

sphere  of  spiritual  religion,  they  have  moments  of 
exquisite  delight,  and  see,  or  think  they  see,  and 
certainly  feel  what  the  unendowed  never  know. 
They  find,  as  others  cannot,  the  images  and  types  of 
Scripture,  of  Providence,  and  of  nature,  helpful  to 
their  higher  well-heing,  and  they  supply  to  commoner, 
duller  souls,  materials  of  holy  enjoyment,  and  even 
an  invigorating  stimulus  to  their  God-ward  desires. 
Let  no  interdict  he  laid  on  the  mystic  fancy,  save 
what  right  reason  and  religion  impose  ;  let  it  discover 
in  the  ancient  Scriptures,  what  foreshadowings,  and 
similitudes,  and  types  it  may :  they  may  be  beautiful, 
even  legitimate,  and  healthful,  and  helpful.  But  we 
have  herein  reached  the  farthest  limit  of  freedom; 
they  cannot  rightfully  and  they  must  not  be  pro- 
nounced divine.  Because  we  think  we  perceive  in 
any  ancient  statement,  or  symbol,  or  fact,  an  image 
of  a  future  spiritual  truth,  we  are  not  entitled  on  this 
ground  alone  to  affirm  that  the  similitude  was  pur- 
posed by  God.  This  introduces  a  totally  new  element, 
which,  if  true,  must  rest  on  other  and  better  evidence. 
Undoubtedly,  all  the  possible  similitudes  and  issues 
of  all  things  must  be  for  ever  present  in  the  eternal 
glance ;  but  to  pronounce  that  any  similitude  which 
we  perceive,  or  think  we  perceive,  was  pre-ordained 
and  purposed,  must  be  the  highest  presumption, 
unless,  indeed,  the  Divine  purpose  be  revealed. 
One  thing  is  certain,  that  the  perception  of  a  typi- 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  323 

cal  meaning  in  any  symbol,  and  the  interpretation  of 
that  meaning,  must  be  almost  as  various  as  there  are 
individuals,  and  must  inevitably  depend,  not  only  on 
the  extent  and  the  kind  of  a  man's  knowledge,  but 
on  the  character  of  his  judging  faculty  and  on  the 
strength  and  culture  of  his  imagination.  He  can 
only  liken  the  type  to  what  he  already  knows  ;  he  can 
only  judge  of  it,  according  to  his  capacity,  whatever 
that  may  be  ;  and  the  result  can  only  take  its  form 
according  as  his  fancy  is  poor,  and  coarse,  or  dis- 
ciplined, vigorous  and  chaste.  A  Christian  man  may 
act  not  wisely,  who  does  not  allow  a  reverent  and 
subdued  imagination  to  range  the  sphere  of  his 
spiritual  contemplations,  but  he  is  more  unwise  still, 
who  exalts  the  play  of  his  fancy,  how^ever  legitimate 
in  its  own  sphere,  into  divine  thought  and  divine 
ordination. 

Neither  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
nor  any  of  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament  ever 
assert  that  the  similitudes  which  they  introduce  were 
ordained  as  such  by  God.  In  announcing  the 
heavenly  truth  which  they  were  commissioned  to 
teach,  they  drew,  as  it  was  impossible  for  them  not 
to  have  done,  on  their  previous  associations,  and 
knowledge,  and  sphere  of  thought,  and  so  much  the 
more,  as  these  were  all  common  to  them  with  those 
whom  they  addressed  and  were  as  sacredly  dear  to 
both.     They  had  no  difficulty  in  finding  many  points 


324  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

of  likeness,  as  well  as  of  direct  contrast,  between  the 
new  and  the  old  dispensation.  No  difficulty  in  turn- 
ing to  the  best  account  ancient  statements,  ancient 
facts,  ancient  persons,  and  ancient  institutions,  and 
no  difficulty  in  illustrating  the  new  by  the  old  and 
giving  a  peculiar  interest  to  the  new,  especially  in 
the  minds  of  Jews,  from  its  pictured  relation  to  the 
old.  Frequently  and  freely  they  compared  and  con- 
trasted Christ's  death  with  the  legal  sacrifices.  But 
they  never  intimated  that  the  legal  sacrifices  were 
ordained  by  God  to  be  typical  and  explanatory  of  the 
death  of  Christ ;  no,  not  once.  The  two  were  quite 
capable  of  being  compared ;  and  such  points  of  com- 
parison as  naturally  suggested  themselves  to  their 
minds,  the  sacred  writers  pointed  out,  but  that  was 
all.  The  inspired  statements  as  they  lie  before  us  in 
the  New  Testament  are  perfectly  natural  and  intelli- 
gible ;  they  picture  a  relation  now  of  resemblance  and 
again  of  difference,  a  relation  which  was  real,  as  it 
was  striking.  But  the  more  real  it  is,  so  much  the 
surer ,  is  the  conclusion,  that  if,  as  was  proved,  the 
ancient  sacrifices  involved  no  expiation  or  satisfac- 
tion, it  must  be  wholly  fallacious  to  attach  this  idea 
to  the  death  of  our  blessed  Lord.  What  the  ancient 
sacrifices  did  not  themselves  contain  they  could  not 
surely  be  employed  to  teach. 

Whatever  be  the  relation  between  type  and  anti- 
type, this  at  least  seems  certain,  and  confirmed  by 


IN  THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  325 

invariable  usage,  that  the  antit}^e  is  something 
higher  than  the  type,  something  further  removed 
from  the  circle  of  common  things.  One  or  two 
familiar  examples  will  exhibit  more  distinctly  what 
is  here  intended.  "As  Jonas'  was  three  days  and 
three  nights  in  the  whale's  belly,  so  shall  the  Son  of 
man  be  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  heart  of 
the  earth."  ^  We  do  not  imagine  a  repetition  of  the 
ancient  phenomenon,  another  rebellious  prophet  flee- 
ing from  the  service  of  his  God,  another  monster  of 
the  deep,  and  another  marvellous  swallowing  and 
disgorging.  The  second  is  not  a  fac-simile  of  the 
first,  but  something  greater,  and  better,  and  truer  to 
nature  and  to  spirit.  "  Destroy  this  temple,  and  in 
three  days  I  will  raise  it  up.  He  spake  of  the  temple 
of  his  body."  2  We  do  not  imagine  the  demolition  of 
huge  masses  of  stone  and  mortar,  and  again  the  noise 
of  axes,  and  hammers,  and  of  busy  workmen  rearing 
a  fallen  structure.  Instead  of  this,  there  is  the 
silent  revivification,  by  the  invisible  power  of  God,  of 
a  body  that  had  sunk  in  death.  "  I  am  the  vine,  ye 
are  the  branches."  3  We  do  not  imagine  another 
vine-like  trunk,  with  other  spreading  branches  on 
either  side.  The  reality  corresponding  to  the  na- 
tural image  is  a  relation  immeasurably  higher,  not 
material  at  all,  but  purely  spiritual.  We  under- 
stand that  a  wondrous  soul  has  united  other  souls  to 

'  Matt.  xii.  40.  «  John  iL  19,  21.  ^  JoI^q  ^v.  5. 


326  SACRIFICIAL  TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

itself  by  common  tlioughts,  common  sympathies ;  and 
a  profound,  common  love  has  so  imparted  itself  to 
them,  and  so  attracted  them  into  its  very  depths, 
that  living  and  luminous  and  sanctifying  influences 
flow  from  it  into  them,  and  an  indissoluble  union  is 
generated.  "  I  am  the  living  bread  which  came 
down  from  heaven.  Whoso  eateth  my  flesh  and 
drinketh  my  blood,  hath  eternal  life.^l  Here  is 
intensely  typical  language ;  but  must  the  reality 
answering  to  it  be  as  material  and  as  gross  as  the 
words  suggest  ?  On  the  contrary,  the  antitype  is 
wholly,  intensely,  and  exquisitely  spiritual.  We 
understand  that  there  is  such  a  vivid  apprehension  of 
the  Saviour,  such  a  welcoming  of  him  and  of  what 
he  is  to  us,  and  can  do  in  us,  and  for  us,  that  he 
becomes  the  very  life  of  our  life,  the  stay,  and  staff 
and  joy,  and  glory  of  our  inner  being. 

With  the  aid  of  these  illustrations  which  bear 
directly  on  the  interpretation  of  almost  every  verse  in 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  we  turn  to  the  altar  of 
sacrifice  and  behold  upon  it  an  innocent  lamb.  The 
offerer  comes  to  acknowledge  and  adore  God,  the  life- 
giver,  to  surrender  back  to  Him  that  which  is  wholly 
His,  and  to  express,  in  the  way  divinely  commanded. 
His  prayer  to  be  restored  to  or  continued  in  the 
separated  nation,  with  all  its  privileges.  The  lamb 
is  slain.     A  deep  gash  is  made  in  its  throat  and  we 

^  John  vi.  51,  54. 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  327 

see  it  quivering  and  struggling,  and  slowly  bleeding 
to  death.  If  now  we  pass  to  the  scene  on  Mount 
Calvary,  it  occurs  at  once  to  thought,  that  there  is 
no  offerer  here,  either  to  acknowledge,  or  adore,  or 
surrender,  or  express  his  desire  or  prayer  to  God — 
no  priest  and  no  altar.  But  there  is  a  sacrifice,  a 
manifest  and  most  costly  sacrifice,  of  life.  Must  we 
imagine  it  to  be  a  mere  repetition,  in  all  the  disgust- 
ing and  coarse  features,  of  the  ancient  ofifering? — 
nay,  more,  must  we  imagine  it  to  be  not  only  not  of 
a  higher  character  than  the  Mosaic  rite,  but  im- 
measurably lower  and  worse,  (for  here  is  not  a  beast, 
but  a  man,  a  spotless,  holy  being,)  more  revolting, 
more  inhuman,  more  horrible  ?  There  are  points  of 
resemblance,  it  is  true,  which  we  cannot  fail  to  mark. 
The  broad,  dark  fact  stands  out  common  to  both — 
death,  a  violently  cruel  death.  The  shedding  of  the 
life-blood  is  characteristic  of  both,  but  profound  and 
wide  contrasts  are  numerous  as  they  are  obvious. 
Animal  life,  on  the  one  hand,  human  life,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  sacrificed.  The  one  is  wholly  an  un- 
conscious act ;  the  other  is  conscious  and  deliberate. 
The  one  is  enforced  endurance ;  the  other  is  volun- 
tary surrender  to  God  and  to  man.  The  one  affects 
only  ceremonial  offences ;  the  other  deals  with  real, 
human  sins,  as  a  wrong  against  God  and  the  moral 
universe.  The  one  secures  outward  reconciliation 
and  restoration  to  divine  worship,  and  to  the  separ- 


328  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

ated  people ;  the  other  effects  the  real  restoration  of  the 
human  soul  to  God,  to  purity,  and  love,  and  heaven. 
Incarnate,  crucified  love  kills  sin  in  the  heart — that 
is  the  simple  fact  of  all  Christian  experience. 

It  is  astounding,  but  it  is  simply  true,  that  this 
very  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  with  its  highly-coloured 
figures  of  a  priest,  a  sanctuary,  a  most  holy  place, 
an  altar,  a  sacrifice,  and  a  blood  of  sprinkling — all 
which,  instead  of  mere  figures,  often  very  forced  and 
mixed,  have  been  taken  for  actual  literal  facts — this 
epistle,  on  which  so  much  has  been  built — this 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  intensely  Hebrew  as  it  is, 
contains  the  very  distinctest  and  most  emphatic  de- 
clarations of  the  purely  ceremonial  character  of  the 
ancient  rites  and  of  the  immeasurably  higher  and 
wholly  spiritual  nature  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ.  It 
is  from  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  we  learn  that 
"  it  is  not  possible" — ^never  was,  and  never  could  be, 
possible — "  that  the  blood  of  bulls  and  of  goats  should 
take  away  sins  "  i — ^real  sins.  It  is  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  we  find  it  declared,  wdth  such  emphasis 
and  such  clearness,  that  the  blood  of  Christ,  the  sym- 
bol of  divine,  reconciling  love,  acts  not  on  the  past  of 
a  man's  history,  but  on  the  inmiediate  present— not 
on  his  outward  relations,  but  on  his  inward  being, 
and  without  touching  the  facts  of  his  history,  wholly 
changes,  and  cleanses,  and  sanctifies  his  nature.    "  If 

1  Heb.  X.  4. 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  329 

the  blood  of  bulls  and  of  goats,  and  tlie  aslies  of  an 
heifer  sprinkling  the  unclean,  sanctifieth  to  the  purify- 
ing of  the  flesh ;  how  much  more  shall  the  blood  of 
Christ,  who,  (wholly  possessed  and  moved)  by  the 
Eternal  Spirit,  offered  himself  without  spot  unto  God, 
purge  your  conscience  from  dead  works,  to  serve  the 
Living  God/'"^  The  antithesis  is  put  with  beautiful 
clearness  and  with  irresistible  force.  The  one  mem- 
ber of  the  contrast  touches  only  the  flesh ;  the  other 
reaches  the  soul,  the  depths  of  the  soul,  the  con- 
science. The  one  takes  away  surface  defilement ;  the 
other  washes  out  real  evil  from  the  heart,  and  does  so 
by  creating  love  of  God,  who  so  loved  us.  There  is 
power,  not  conventional,  factitious  power,  but  real, 
spiritual  power  in  this — a  power  redeeming  us  from 
dead  works,  (works  which  carry  death  within  them, 
and  have  death  as  their  proper  and  necessary  fruit, 
for  the  wages  of  sin  is  death ;)  power  which  trans- 
lates us  from  death  to  life,  from  deathful  works  to 
a  living  God,  and  a  living,  holy  service.  The  pur- 
pose of  the  blood  of  Christ,  of  Incarnate,  dying  love, 
according  to  this  inspired  writer,  the  end  which  it 
contemplates,  and  which  it  efiects,  is  real,  inward 
purification,  neither  more  nor  less.  The  blood  of 
Christ  is  only  and  wholly  a  moral  influence,  not 
the  ground  of  any  imagined,  legal  acquittal,  but 
the  deep  cause  of  a  spiritual  renewal,  and  of  a  pu- 

1  Heb.  ix.  13,  14. 


330  SACKIFICIAL   TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

rity  which  springs  from  humble  trust  in  God's  free 
grace. 

Passing  now  from  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  one 
of  the  most  extended  and  clear  and  simple  accounts 
to  be  found  in  the  apostolic  letters  of  what  we  should 
now  call  the  nature  of  the  gospel,  of  the  mission  in- 
trusted to  the  apostles  of  Christianity,  and  of  the 
message  which  they  were  empowered  to  announce  to 
the  world,  is  given  in  2  Cor.  v.  14-21.  The  question 
may  be  supposed  to  be  put.  Who  were  these  apostles 
who  traversed  the  world,  preaching  and  labouring 
and  suffering  and  dying?  What  did  they  mean? 
what  was  their  aim?  and  what  was  the  influence 
under  which  they  were  acting  ?  The  question  is  an- 
swered with  great  distinctness.  "  Love  of  Christ  "-^ 
not  love  of  glory,  or  of  wealth,  or  of  personal  aggran- 
disement of  any  kind,  but  pure  love  of  Christ  — 
"  constraineth  us ;  because  we  thus  judge,  that  if  one 
died  for  all,  then  were  all  dead" — doomed  to  death. 
A  constraining,  overpowering  force  of  gratitude  had 
laid  hold  of  these  men,  generated  by  the  faith  that 
God  had  so  loved  them,  and  that,  in  the  love  of  God, 
Christ  had  lived  and  died  for  them.  "  And  that  he 
died  for  all,  that  they  who  live  " — who  have  through 
this  means  been  raised  and  restored  to  a  new  life — 
"should  not  henceforth  live  unto  themselves,  but 
unto  him  who  died  for  them,  and  rose  again."  And 
this  profound  sense  of  the  dying  love  of  Christ,  and 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  331 

of  the  love  of  God  in  Christ,  had  laid  open  to  them 
a  totally  new  world,  and  revealed  and  generated  a 
totally  new  centre  of  being,  a  new  aim  and  end. 
Hitherto  they  had  been  in  the  flesh,  saw  with  their 
fleshly  eyes,  and  thought  and  felt  under  the  influence 
of  common  outward  interests,  ambitions,  and  rela- 
tions. But  now  they  were  in  the  Spirit,  the  holy 
Spirit  of  God,  of  Christ ;  and  the  consequence  was, 
that  a  totally  new  mode  of  thinking  and  feeling  and 
looking  at  everything  possessed  them.  Jewish  ideas 
and  prepossessions  and  prejudices  were  in  great  mea- 
sure gone ;  a  wide,  quickening,  humanising,  divine 
influence  reigned  in  them ,  and  men  and  things  were 
no  longer  to  them  as  they  had  before  been.  "  Where- 
fore, henceforth  know  we  no  man  after  the  flesh." 
The  distinction  between  Jew  and  Gentile,  country- 
men, kinsmen,  and  strangers,  bond  and  free,  was  no 
more  recognised,  but  a  higher,  broader,  an  all-em- 
bracing love  took  its  place.  "  Yea,  though  we  have 
known  Christ  after  the  flesh"  —  known  him  and 
boasted  of  him  as  a  Jew,  the  son  of  David,  one  of 
the  holy  nation — "  yet  now  henceforth  know  we  him 
no  more."  He  is  to  us  the  symbol,  not  of  glory  to 
the  Jew,  but  of  God's  unspeakable  love  to  the  world. 
"  Therefore  if  any  man  be  in  Christ,  he  is  a  new 
creature:  old  things  are  passed  away;  behold,  all 
things  are  become  new." 

At  this  point  the  question  may  be  supposed  to  be 


332  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS  AND   ALLUSIONS 

put,  Whence,  and  how  has  this  great  spiritual  re- 
volution originated?  Is  it  human,  or  divine? — a 
thought  of  these  apostles  themselves,  an  effort,  an 
achievement  of  theirs,  or  purely  and  solely  a  divine 
work  ?  Again  the  question  is  answered  with  great 
distinctness ;  and  we  are  taught  that  the  work  and 
the  thought  are  wholly  divine,  wholly  springing  out 
of  divine,  reconciling  love.  "  And  all  things  are  of 
God,  who  hath  reconciled  us  to  himself  by  (or  in) 
Jesus  Christ/'  Not  a  word  or  hint  is  there  here  of 
reconciling  Himself  to  us,  appeasing  His  anger,  satis- 
fying His  justice,  or  expiating  our  sin.  If  Paul  had 
anything  of  this  kind  in  his  thoughts,  at  least  he  has 
left  no  record  of  the  fact.  The  great,  we  are  entitled 
to  assume,  the  sole  idea  in  his  mind,  as  he  recalled 
his  own  experience  of  Christianity,  and  reflected  on 
what  he  knew  of  the  experience  of  others,  was  this, 
God  hath  reconciled  us,  won  us  back,  to  Himself  by 
Jesus  Christ,  "  And  hath  given  to  us  the  ministry  of 
reconciliation."  But  what  is  the  ministry  of  recon- 
ciliation ?  "To  wit,  that  God  was  in  (or  by)  Christ, 
reconciling  the  world  to  himself" — not  adopting  a 
strange  expedient  whereby  to  reconcile  Himself  to 
men,  and  render  it  consistent  and  honourable  and 
safe  in  Him,  as  a  just  God,  and  the  Moral  Governor 
of  the  universe,  to  pardon  them  ;  not  this,  not  this  at 
all,  but  exactly  the  reverse,  "  Keconciling  (gaining 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  333 

back,  recovering)  the  world  to  himself" — "  not  im- 
puting their  trespasses  unto  them." 

Ought  we  not  to  pause  with  great  seriousness,  and 
ponder  this  singularly  simple  and  clear  and  unen- 
cumbered deliverance  of  holy  Scripture  ?  The  God 
in  whom  Paul  trusted  was  not  a  Being  who  needed 
first  of  all  to  be  propitiated  and  appeased,  and  who 
must  first  of  all  have  sin  atoned  for,  and  justice  satis- 
fied, and  law  honoured  by  sacrificial  suffering ;  but 
One  who  loved  the  world  with  an  infinite  love,  who 
was  infinitely  in  earnest  that  it  should  turn  to  Him 
and  live,  and  who  had  adopted  the  most  overwhelm- 
ing method  of  expressing  His  love,  and  of  laying 
open  to  His  creatures  the  very  depths  of  His  heart. 
The  God  in  whom  Paul  trusted  was  not  a  Being  who 
waited  in  silent  anger  till  men  came  to  His  feet,  and 
either  themselves,  or  through  a  substitute,  did  some- 
thing which  should  render  it  consistent  and  dignified 
in  Him  to  forgive  them ;  but  One  who  came  forth  to 
seek  and  to  save  the  lost,  and  to  tell  men  that  He 
wanted  nothing,  but  that  they  should  turn  to  Him 
and  live,  proclaiming  it  with  His  own  voice,  "  Turn 
ye,  turn  ye,  for  why  will  ye  die?"  That  is  the 
gospel  which  apostles  were  commissioned  to  announce 
to  the  world,  and  which  was  mighty,  through  God, 
in  the  regeneration  of  myriads  I 

One  question  now  remains,  of  very  obvious  prac- 


334  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND    ALLUSIONS 

tical  importance,  How  did  the  apostles  acquit  them- 
selves of  their  sacred  trust,  if  such  it  was,  as  these 
sentences  convey?  What  did  they  imagine  that 
faithfulness  to  their  trust  required  of  them  in  deal- 
ing with  men  ?  A  modern  teacher  or  preacher  would 
probably  feel,  that  his  first  duty,  in  fulfilling  a  sacred 
ministry,  was  to  show  the  necessity  of  atonement  for 
sin,  and  satisfaction  to  justice,  before  God  could 
pardon  ;  to  explain  how  this  necessity  had  been  com- 
pletely met  by  the  obedience  and  sufferings  of  Christ 
in  the  room  of  sinners  ;  and  to  urge  men  to  seek  for 
pardon  on  this  ground.  But  Paul  has  forgotten,  at 
all  events  he  distinctly  omits,  this,  as  many  judge, 
corner-stone  of  the  Christian  faith.  Perhaps  in  the 
hurry  and  fervour  of  speaking  it  escaped  him,  though 
so  vitally  and  essentially  important.  We  cannot 
make  this  excuse.  He  is  not  speaking,  but  writing, 
dictating  to  an  amanuensis,  who  shall  read  over  again 
to  him  what  has  been  put  down.  He  is  writing  a 
very  important  letter  to  the  Corinthian  church, 
leisurely,  collectedly,  carefully.  He  is  dealing  with 
the  most  central  and  the  most  vital  truths  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  and  he  omits  altogether  that  which  is  sup- 
posed to  be  the  truest  and  highest  of  them  all.  He 
had  shown  what  he  had  conceived  to  be  the  gospel, 
the  ministry  of  reconciliation,  namely,  that  God,  by 
Jesus  Christ,  was  subduing  the  heart  of  the  world, 
and  reconciling  it  to  Himself.      It  follows  imme- 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  335 

diately,  "  Now  then,  we  are  ambassadors  for  Christ, 
as  though  God  did  beseech  you  by  us,  we  pray  you 
in  Christ's  stead,  be  ye  reconciled  to  God."  This  is 
all,  in  Paul's  judgment,  which  God  asks  ;  this  is  the 
one  aim  and  end  of  all  God  has  done — "  be  ye  recon- 
ciled to  God."  And  now  clothing  His  thoughts  in 
Jewish  imagery  and  phrase,  he  adds,  "  for  He  hath 
made  him  to  be  sin  (a  sin-offering)  for  us,  who  knew 
no  sin."  But  the  apostle  brings  out  a  far  nobler,  a 
diviner,  meaning  than  the  old  language  and  the  old 
worship  ever  expressed.  Christ,  he  suggests,  was  the 
true  sin-offering,  the  only  true  sin-offering,  the  world 
ever  saw,  or  ever  will  or  can  see.  He  did  what  no 
Jewish  sacrifice  was  ever  intended  to  do,  what  no 
sacrifice,  Jewdsh  or  Pagan,  ever  could  do,  he  actually, 
really  took  away  sin,  took  it,  and  takes  it,  out  of  the 
heart,  by  his  sacrifice  and  death.  God  hath  made 
him  to  be  a  sin-offering  for  us,  who  knew  no  sin, 
"  that  we  might  be  made  the  righteousness  (right- 
nes3  or  rightenedness)  of  God  by  him" — that  we 
might  be  divinely  Tightened  by  him. 

In  the  same  simple,  beautiful,  and  subduing  tone 
and  spirit,  far,  far  away  from  all  ideas  of  expiation 
and  satisfaction,  the  apostle  closes  his  message,  as  an 
ambassador  of  Heaven,  "  We  then,  as  workers  toge- 
ther with  God,  beseech  you  also,  that  ye  receive  not 
the  (this)  grace  of  God  in  vain." 


SECTION  SECOND — ACTS  OF  THE  APOSTLES. 

Early  History  of  Christianity — First  Christian  Sermon — Peter's 
Gospel — Martyr  Stephen  —  Ethiopian  Eunuch  —  Cornelius — 
Saul  of  Tarsus,  His  Conversion,  His  Ministry  —  Antioch, 
Athens,  Miletus,  Philippi  —  "Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be  saved,  and  thy  house." 

THE  early  history  of  Christianity  is  invaluable  as 
a  key,  the  only  one  which  we  possess,  to  that 
which  was  uppermost  in  the  thought  and  in  the  heart 
of  the  first  disciples,  in  the  years  immediately  suc- 
ceeding the  death  of  their  Master.  It  needs  no 
reasoning  to  prove  that  they  knew  thoroughly  well 
what  Christ's  gospel  really  was.  The  personal  friends 
and  companions  of  Jesus,  who  had  been  most  inti- 
mately and  affectionately  associated  with  him  for 
three  years,  and  during  that  period  had  been  con- 
stantly under  the  influence  of  his  deeply  marked 
character,  and  of  his  special  and  singular  spirit,  of 
his  public  teaching,  and  of  his  most  retired  and  sacred 
utterances;  who  had  witnessed  his  death,  and  had 
seen  him,  and  had  intercourse  with  him  after  his 


SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND    ALLUSIONS,    ETC.       337 

resurrection ;  who,  after  his  departure,  had,  at  his 
command,  waited  in  solemn  prayer  to  God,  during 
seven  days,  for  that  Holy  Ghost  whom  he  had  pro- 
mised to  send  forth,  and  on  whose  souls  at  last  an 
extraordinary  divine  .  power  had  descended,  —  they 
certainly  must  have  known  what  their  Master  in- 
tended should  be  preached,  as  his  gospel,  and  above 
all,  must  have  known  that  which  was  most  essential 
and  divine  in  it.  And  when,  only  seven  weeks  after 
his  death,  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  they  assembled  in 
Jerusalem,  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  their  minds 
and  their  hearts  must  have  been  full  of  Christ,  of  his 
teaching,  his  thoughts,  his  spirit,  and  his  very  words. 
They  must  have  burned  to  speak  of  him,  and  to  pro- 
claim in  the  fullest,  clearest,  and  broadest  terms,  that 
in  him  which  they  had  found  to  be  life  for  them- 
selves, and  which  they  knew  was  meant  to  be  life  to 
the  world  and  to  all  times. 

A  noble  occasion  of  disburdening  their  full  hearts 
was  presented.  Jerusalem  was  crowded  with  multi- 
tudes from  all  quarters  of  the  known  world  ;  a  mighty 
audience  was  prepared,  and  they  w^ere  not  only  ex- 
pected, but  invited  to  speak.  And  they  did  speak. 
Thoroughly  instructed  as  they  were  in  the  life,  and 
death,  and  doctrine  of  their  Lord,  glowing  with  love 
of  Christ,  and  love  of  their  yet  blinded  countrymen, 
specially  intrusted  with  the  message  of  salvation, 
and  specially  endowed  to  proclaim  it,  they  did  speak, 


338  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND   ALLUSIONS 

and  with  great  freedom,  and  fervour,  and  fulness. 
But  their  theme,  what  was  it?  The  expiation  of 
human  sin,  and  satisfaction  to  divine  justice,  by  the 
sacrifice  and  sufferings  of  Jesus  on  the  cross.  Pardon 
obtained  from  God,  through  means  of  that  sacrifice 
and  these  sufferings.  If  ever  there  was  an  occasion, 
whether  we  look  to  the  speakers  or  to  the  hearers,  or 
to  the  circumstances,  when  these  announcements,  sup- 
posing them  to  be  fundamental  and  vital,  must  have 
been  made,  this  was  that  occasion.  But  they  were 
not  made,  and  nothing  like  them  was  once  uttered. 

Peter's  sermon  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  to  the 
crowding,  eager  multitudes  of  Jerusalem,  the  first 
Christian  sermon  ever  preached  in  this  world,  con- 
tains from  beginning  to  end  nothing  of  this  kind. 
The  preacher  begins  by  accounting  for  the  unex- 
ampled enthusiasm  and  excitement  which  the  people 
had  witnessed  in  him  and  his  fellow  disciples,  on  the 
ground  of  an  influence  from  above,  such  as  is  dis- 
tinctly foretold  in  ancient  prophecy.  He  connects 
this  extraordinary  divine  influence  with  the  power  of 
the  risen  Jesus,  and  he  declares  him  to  be  the  true 
son  of  David,  the  Messiah  promised  to  the  fathers. 
He  tells  of  his  life,  his  death,  his  resurrection,  and 
his  ascension;  he  solemnly  adjures  all  the  house  of 
Israel  now  to  know  assuredly  that  God  had  made 
this  Jesus, .  both  Lord  and  Christ ;  and,  finally,  he 
charges  home  on  his  countrymen  the  crime  of  put- 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  339 

ing  to  death  God's  Anointed.  That  is  the  sermon, 
the  whole  sermon — surely  not  given  to  the  world 
with  so  serious  a  fault,  as  the  omission  of  that  which 
was  most  essential  and  most  vital  for  all  coming  ages 
to  know. 

But  certain  memorable  consequences  followed  this 
address,  in  the  record  of  which,  perhaps,  we  may  find 
this  great  defect  supplied.  Let  us  see.  The  sermon 
produced  a  marvellous  effect.  "  Now  when  they 
heard  this  they  were  pricked  in  their  hearts,  and 
said  unto  Peter  and  to  the  rest  of  the  apostles,  Men 
and  brethren,  what  shall  we  do  ?  Then  Peter  said 
unto  them,  Kepent,  /jLeravorjaare,  and  be  baptized 
every  one  of  you  in  (into)  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ 
for  (in  order  to)  the  remission  of  sins,  and  ye  shall 
receive  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  i  That  very 
important  word,  "repent,"  is  ill  understood  by  mere 
English  readers  of  the  New  Testament.  It  does  not 
mean,  be  sorry  for  sin ;  it  does  not  mean  this  at  all, 
though  sorrow  for  sin  is  one  of  the  effects  included  in 
the  far  more  comprehensive  idea  which  the  word 
expresses.  Kepent  is,  simply,  change  your  mind — 
no  more ;  and  repentance  is  not  sorrow  for  sin,  but 
simply,  change  of  mind — no  more.  Peter's  counsel 
to  the  conscience-stricken  people  of  Jerusalem  is 
this,  "  change  your  mind."  Your  mode  of  thinking 
has  been  entirely  wrong,  your  conception  of  God, 
1  Acts  ii.  37,  38. 


340  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND    ALLUSIONS 

of  tlie  Messiah,  of  yourselves,  and  of  sin,  has  been 
founded  in  error.  Change  your  mind :  see  in  Jesus, 
Gods  Messiah !  see  God  himself  in  His  Anointed ! 
above  all,  see  God's  love  to  you  in  him !  Turn  to 
this  loving  God  with  all  your  heart — repent — change 
your  mind  ;  and  in  token  of  this  change,  and  of  your 
genuine  self-surrender,  "  be  baptized  every  one  of  you 
into  the  name  of  Jesus,  in  order  to  the  remission 
of  sins,  and  ye  shall  receive  the  gift  of  the  Holy 
Ghost." 

The  second  Christian  sermon  ever  preached,  like 
the  first,  fell  from  the  lips  of  Peter.  A  vast  crowd 
had  collected,  on  the  rumour  of  the  marvellous  cure 
of  a  lame  man,  at  the  gate  of  the  temple,  and  Peter 
addressed  them.  First  of  all,  he  again  extols  Christ 
his  Lord,  and  ascribes  the  miracle  to  his  power. 
Again,  he  tells  of  Christ's  life,  and  death,  and  resur- 
rection, charges  them  with  his  murder,  and  by  refer- 
ence to  Moses  and  all  the  prophets,  is  at  pains  to 
prove  his  true  Messiahship — his  very  sufferings  and 
death  themselves,  long  ago  foreshown,  being  among 
the  strongest  evidences  of  the  fact.  Once  more  his 
counsel  is,  "  Kepenf' — change  your  mind — "  and  be 
converted," — turn  to  God, — "  that  your  sins  may  be 
blotted  out."  Encouraging  and  urging  them  in- 
stantly to  this  course,  ho  closes  with  these  words, 
"  Unto  you  first  God,  having  raised  up  his  Son 
Jesus,  sent  him  to  bless  you,  in  turning  away  every 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  341 

one  of  you  from  his  iniquities."  l  This  is  the  holy 
work  intrusted  to  the  Kedeemer,  not  to  appease 
God's  anger,  but  to  be  the  highest  utterance  of 
God's  love, — not  to  satisfy  God's  justice,  but  to  be 
God's  messenger  to  bless  mankind, — not  to  make 
expiation  for  sin,  but  to  turn  men  away  from  sin, 
and  to  fill  their  hearts  with  abhorrence  of  it. 

To  the  same  effect,  when  brought  before  the  coun- 
cil on  account  of  this  miracle  of  healing,  Peter's  aim 
is  still  to  exalt  his  Lord,  as  the  source  of  that  power 
by  which  the  impotent  man  was  cured,  and  as  the 
true  Messiah, — a  stone  once  rejected,  as  foretold  by 
the  prophet,  but  now  become  the  head  of  the  corner. 
The  Jewish  rulers  and  people  dreamed  of  another 
Messiah,  by  another  name  than  that  of  Jesus,  who 
was  yet  to  appear  for  the  salvation  of  Israel.  The 
apostle  denounces  the  visionary  hope,  "  Neither  is 
there  salvation  in  any  other,  for  there  is  none  other 
name  under  heaven  given  among  men,  whereby  we 
must  be  saved. "2  At  a  later  period,  when  once  more 
brought  before  the  Sanhedrim  and  commanded  to 
cease  preaching  in  the  name  of  Christ,  the  apostles 
replied,  "  We  ought  to  obey  God  rather  than  men," 
and  then  fell  back  on  the  ground  which  they  at  first 
had  taken,  and  reiterated  what  to  them  was  the 
highest  truth,  involving  every  other,  "  The  God  of 
our  fathers   raised  up   Jesus,  whom  ye    slew  and 

1  Acts  iii.  19,  2G.  2  ^^ts  iv.  11,  12. 


342  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

hanged  on  a  tree.  Him  hath  God  exalted  with  His 
right  hand  to  be  a  Prince  and  a  Saviour,  for  to 
give  repentance" — an  entire  change  of  mind — "to 
Israel  and  forgiveness  of  sins.  And  we  are  his  wit- 
nesses of  these  things,  and  so  is  also  the  Holy  Ghost, 
whom  God  hath  given  to  them  that  obey  Him."^ 

Of  the  course  of  the  gospel  during  the  next  ten  or 
twelve  years  which  succeeded  the  death  of  Jesus, 
our  knowledge  is  exceedingly  limited.  But  so  far  as 
the  scanty  materials  of  information  go,  there  is  not 
a  word  or  hint  of  sacrificial,  expiatory  sufferings,  of 
pardon  from  God  procured  by  these,  or  of  imputation 
or  satisfaction.  In  the  first  fervours  of  Christianity, 
when,  if  ever,  the  true  message  of  the  cross,  and  its 
supreme  significance,  must  have  been  proclaimed 
unweariedly,  the  subject  of  apostolic  teaching,  the 
chief,  almost  the  sole  subject  of  apostolic  teaching, 
was  Christ,  the  Messiah  of  God,  but  rejected  and 
crucified  by  men, — Christ,  the  hope  of  Israel  and  of 
the  world, — Christ,  in  whose  name  was  preached  to 
all  men  the  forgiveness  of  sins. 

The  first  Christian  martyr,  Stephen,  was  endowed 
with  uncommon  gifts,  and  had  been  selected  by  his 
fellow-disciples,  as  the  first  of  seven,  who,  next  to 
the  apostles,  v/ere  charged  with  the  oversight  of  the 
newly- formed  church.  His  extraordinary  powers 
drew  down  on  him  the  vengeance  of  the  elders  and 

1  Acts  V.  29-S2. 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  343 

scribes,  and  he  was  summoned  before  the  Sanhedrim, 
and  charged  with  a  capital  offence.  In  such  circum- 
stances, one  baptized,  as  he  was,  with  the  spirit  of 
Christ  and  of  Christianity,  in  earnest,  both  to  defend 
his  own  convictions,  and  to  reach  the  blinded  and 
hardened  consciences  before  him,  could  not  have  kept 
back  the  most  essential  truth  of  his  adopted  faith. 
He  certainly  did  not ;  but  he  considered  the  most 
essential  truth  to  be  this,  that  God's  Messiah,  who 
came  to  save  from  sin,  and  who  was  actually  saving, 
as  he  and  thousands  of  others  knew  in  themselves, 
had  been  wickedly  scorned  and  crucified.  His  long 
address  is  a  recapitulation  of  Israelitish  history  lead- 
ing to  this  point,  that  through  all  the  ages  God's 
prophets  had  been  persecuted  and  slain,  and  that,  at 
last,  the  Anointed  himself  had  been  basely  put  to 
death.  He  was  listened  to  till  he  directly  charged 
those  before  him,  in  these  tremendous  words:  your 
fathers  "  have  slain  them  which  showed  before  the 
coming  of  the  Just  One,  of  whom  ye  have  been  now 
the  betrayers  and  the  murderers :  who  have  received 
the  law  by  the  disposition  of  angels,  and  have  not 
kept  it."  Then  they  stoned  Stephen  —  a  noble 
exemplar  to  all  times,  how  most  Christianly  death 
may  be  encountered,  be  the  circumstances  what  they 
may.  "They  stoned  Stephen,  calling  upon  God,  and 
saying.  Lord  Jesus,  receive  my  spirit."  Following 
his  blessed  Lord,  the  first  martyr  be(][ueathed  to  the 


344:  SACRIFICIAL    TERMS    AND    ALLUSIONS 

world  a  testimony  such  as  only  the  religion  of  the  cross 
ever  inspired,  and  only  the  religion  of  the  cross  ever 
received.  "  And  he  kneeled  down,  and  cried  with  a 
loud  voice,  Lord,  lay  not  this  sin  to  their  charge. 
And,  when  he  had  said  this,  he  fell  asleep."  "•• 

The  narrative  of  the  Ethiopian  eunuch  meeting 
with  the  evangelist  Pliihp,  carries  us  into  a  region 
of  faith  and  hope,  of  which  but  few  glimpses  are 
afforded.  A  Gentile,  belonging  to  a  remote  country, 
had  come  to  know  the  God  of  Israel,  and  was  some- 
how possessed  of  a  portion  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures.  2 
He  was  reading  Isaiah  liii.  when  Philip  encountered 
him,  and  he  at  once  eagerly  sought  an  interpretation 
of  the  passage.  We  are  told  that  "  Philip  opened  his 
mouth,  and  began  at  the  same  scripture,  and  preached 
unto  him  Jesus.''  The  sermon  is  not  given,  but  we 
can  imagine  how,  from  such  a  text,  he  would  unfold 
the  character  and  the  work  of  the  Messiah,  and  pre- 
sent the  simple,  touching  sense  of  the  prophecy.  We 
can  imagine  that  he  would  point  out  how  naturally 
and  literally  the  ancient  oracle  fulfilled  itseK  in  Jesus 
of  Nazareth ;  how  innocent  and  patient  and  meek  he 
was,  amidst  all  his  cruel  sufferings ;  how  he  died  for 
sins,  but  not  his  own — died,  to  take  away  sin  out  of 
the  hearts  of  men ;  how  love,  divine  love,  was  ex- 
pressed in  his  life,  and  in  his  cross ;  and  how,  through 
all,  he  was  proved  to  be  the  very  Messiah  of  God. 

i  Acts  vii.  52,  53,  59,  60.  ^  j^g^s  viii.  28,  35,  37. 


IN    THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  3-i5 

The  effect  of  the  sermon  we  know,  and  its  effect 
reveals  plainly  what  itself  must  have  been.  It 
brought  the  eunuch  to  this  conclusion: — "  I  believe 
that  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God'' — another  name  for 
Messiah,  the  Anointed  of  God,  who  came  to  save 
his  people  from  their  sins.  And  on  this  profession 
he  was  baptized. 

Closely  connected  with  the  story  of  the  Ethiopian 
eunuch,  and,  like  it,  throwing  some  light  into  the 
darkness  of  ancient  heathendom,  is  the  conversion 
of  the  Koman  centurion,  Cornelius.  The  narrative 
teems  with  interest  on  all  skies.  The  apostle  Peter 
himself,  divinely  taught,  made  a  marvellous  advance 
on  this  occasion  into  the  clearer,  fuller,  broader  light 
of  heavenly  truth.  For  the  first  time,  so  far  as 
appears,  his  mind,  intensely  Jewish  before,  opened 
itself  wide  to  the  true  character  of  God,  as  the  lovins: 
Father  of  all  His  children  on  earth,  and  not  the  par- 
tial guardian  of  a  single  favourite  tribe.  How  these 
noble  words  of  the  newly -illuminated  and  inspired 
man  shatter  to  pieces  and  scatter  to  the  winds  all 
our  scientific  theologies :  "  Of  a  truth  I  perceive  that 
God  is  no  respecter  of  persons :  but  in  every  nation 
he  that  feareth  him,  and  worketh  righteousness,  is 
accepted  with  him."  ^ 

But  we  are  specially  interested  to  ascertain  the  man- 
ner in  which  Peter  acquitted  himself  of  his  apostolic 

1  Acts  X.  34-43. 


346  SACRIFICIAL  TERMS    AND   ALLUSIONS 

trust.  Cornelius  and  his  people  were  proselytes  to  Ju- 
daism, liad  heard  something  of  the  new  truth  which 
had  shone  on  Judea,  and  were  profoundly  anxious  to 
know  what  it  really  was.  They  were  preternaturally 
assured  that  Peter  was  commissioned  and  endowed  by 
Heaven  to  instruct  them  ;  and  with  great  earnestness, 
Cornelius  says  to  him,  "  We  are  all  here  present  before 
God,  to  hear  all  things  that  are  commanded  thee  of 
God."  In  such  circumstances,  it  is  very  certain  that 
Peter,  whatever  else  he  proclaimed,  would  not  omit 
the  things  most  essential  to  salvation.  The  sermon  is 
before  us.  It  tells  of  the  life  and  death  and  resurrec- 
tion of  Jesus,  and  especially,  that  he  was  ordained  of 
God,  the  Judge  of  the  living  and  the  dead,  as  else- 
where he  is  declared  to  be  set  for  the  fall  and  the 
rising  again  of  many  in  Israel — the  touchstone  and 
test,  whereby  it  should  be  shown  whether  they  would 
hear,  or  whether  they  would  forbear.  But  the  sum 
and  the  grand  aim  of  Peter's  words  are  contained  in 
this  sentence :  "  Christ  is  Lord  of  all."  He  is  the 
Messiah  whom  God  hath  sent  to  bless  men  in  turn- 
ing them  away  from  their  iniquities.  "  To  him," 
says  Peter,  on  this  memorable  occasion,  "  give  all  the 
prophets  witness,  that,  through  his  name,  whosoever 
belie veth  in  him  shall  receive  remission  of  sins." 
Trust  in  God's  Messiah,  trust  in  a  loving,  reconciling 
God  in  Christ,  is  the  germ  of  spiritual  salvation. 
The  conversion  of  Saul  of  Tarsus  marks  a  great 


IN    THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  347 

crisis  in  the  early  history  of  our  religion.  We  have 
three  accounts  of  this  wonderful  event — one  by  the 
historian  of  the  Acts,  another,  reported  in  the  words 
of  Paul  himself  when  he  addressed  the  tumultuous 
assemblage  in  Jerusalem,  and  a  third,  also  reported 
in  Paul's  own  words  when  he  appeared  before  Agrip- 
pa.  The  accounts,  more  or  less  full,  are  consistent 
and  harmonious.  But  whether  we  turni  to  the 
words  of  Jesus  to  the  persecutor  of  his  church,  as  he 
travelled  on  his  murderous  mission  to  Damascus,  or 
to  the  words  of  Ananias,  who  was  commanded  to 
instruct  and  direct  the  penitent,  we  mark  the  total 
absence  of  everything  which  bears  even  the  most  dis- 
tant approach  to  what  in  these  days  is  called,  by  way 
of  eminence,  the  gospel.  Saul  himself,  even  in  the 
first  impetuous  warmth  of  Christian  faith  and  zeal, 
does  not  preach  this  gospel  at  all,  to  the  perishing 
sinners  of  Damascus.  But  he  does  preach ;  at  once, 
and  wdth  all  the  characteristic  ardour  of  his  nature, 
now  fired  with  a  deeper  and  diviner  love  than  he  had 
ever  known,  he  throws  himself  into  the  holy  service 
of  his  Lord.  But  his  theme  is  certainly  not  the  gos- 
pel, as  now  conventionally  understood.  We  read, 
"  he  preached  Christ  in  the  synagogues,  that  he  is 
the  Son  of  God," — the  Messiah.  His  hearers,  re- 
ferring to  his  past  life,  were  amazed.  "  But  Saul 
increased  the  more  in  strength,  and  confounded  the 

1  Acts  ix.  5,  17. 


348  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

Jews  which  dwelt  at  Damascus,  proving  that  this  is 
very  Christ."  i  That  is  all  which  has  come  down  to 
us  of  his  earliest  ministry  as  an  apostle.  His  subject 
is  the  Messiahship  ;  Jesus,  God's  Messiah,  but  always 
at  the  same  time,  Jesus  the  Saviour  of  Jew  and 
Gentile,  Jesus  who  came  forth  from  God  with  this 
sole  purpose,  to  save  from  sin,  and  to  publish  forgive- 
ness of  sins,  as  the  pure,  mere  gift  of  God's  grace. 

The  first  Christian  sermon  by  the  apostle  Paul,  of 
which  we  have  any  detailed  record,  was  preached  in 
the  synagogue  of  Antioch.  It  begins  with  early 
Israelitish  history  up  to  the  time  of  David,  proclaims 
Jesus  to  be  the  son  of  David,  and  the  Saviour  of 
Israel,  shows  how  John,  Messiah's  forerunner,  pointed 
out  Jesus  as  he  that  should  come  after  him,  relates 
how  he  was  rejected,  condemned,  and  crucified,  but 
raised  again  by  the  power  of  God,  and  concludes 
with  these  words :  "  Be  it  known  unto  you,  therefore, 
men  and  brethren,  that  through  this  man  is  preached 
unto  you  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  and  by  him  all  that 
believe  are  justified  (set  right,  rectified)  from  all 
things,  from  which  ye  could  not  be  justified  (set 
right,  rectified)  by  the  law  of  Moses."  2  At  Lystra 
Paul  and  Barnabas  were  honoured  at  first  exceed- 
ingly, and  were  imagined  to  be  gods  in  human  form. 
The  people,  with  the  priest  of  Jupiter  at  their  head, 
brought  oxen  and  garlands,  and  were  ready  to  do 

^  AciiS  ix.  20,  22.  2  ^^ts  xiii.  16-39. 


IN   THE   NEW  TESTAMENT.  349 

sacrifice  to  them.  Here,  surely,  was  not  only  a 
legitimate  occasion  offered,  but  a  positive  necessity 
created  for  proclaiming  the  one  only  expiatory  sacri- 
fice for  sin,  if  this  had  been  the  truth,  and  above  all, 
the  highest  truth  of  Christianity.  But  not  a  whisper 
of  this  kind  fell  from  the  lips  of  God's  ambassadors. 
They  only  rushed  in  among  the  people  in  conster- 
nation, and  strove  to  put  a  stop  to  the  impiety. 
"  Sirs,  why  do  ye  these  things  ?  We  also  are  men 
of  like  passions  with  you,  and  preach  unto  you  that 
ye  turn  from  these  vanities  unto  the  living  God.''  i 

At  Athens,  the  centre  of  ancient  civilisation,  but 
the  stronghold  also  of  ancient  idolatry,  Paul  pro- 
claims 2  the  One  true  God,  to  them  unknown,  a 
Spirit,  and  the  Father  of  spirits ;  proclaims  the 
living,  loving  Father,  and  all  souls  His  offspring, 
a  God  not  distant,  but  very  near  to  every  one  of  us ; 
not  indifferent,  but  observant,  and  ever  holding  His 
rational  children  responsible  to  Himself.  "  He  hath 
appointed  a  day  in  the  which  He  will  judge  the 
world  in  righteousness,  by  that  man  whom  he  hath 
ordained,  whereof  He  hath  given  assurance  unto  all 
men,  in  that  He  hath  raised  him  from  the  dead." 
This  day  of  judgment  some  able  expositors  have 
suggested — and  the  idea  adapts  itself  with  remark- 
able fitness  to  Paul's  audience,  and  to  the  circum- 
stances— is  the  whole  course  of  the  Christian  dis- 

1  Acts  xiv.  15.  ^  Acts  xvii.  31. 


350  SACRIFICIAL    TERMS    AND   ALLUSIONS 

pensation  on  earth,  from  its  beginning  to  its  close, 
during  which  the  world  is  tried  and  proved  by  Christ, 
the  Incarnate,  Crucified  One,  and  the  last  test  is  ap- 
plied whereby  it  shall  be  discovered,  whether  men 
will  yield,  or  not  yield,  to  the  claims  of  God,  ap- 
pealing to  them  in  their  strongest  and  most  subdu- 
ing form. 

At  Miletus  Paul  addressed  the  elders  of  Ephesus, 
where  he  had  long  laboured,  and  in  a  single  sentence 
expressed  the  whole  aim  and  meaning  of  the  work  of 
his  life — "  testifying  both  to  the  Jews  and  also  to  the 
Greeks,  repentance  (an  entire  change  of  mind)  toward 
God,  and  faith  toward  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  l 

When  Felix  the  governor,  with  his  wife  Priscilla, 
a  Jewess,  sent  for  Paul  to  hear  from  him  concerning 
the  faith  of  Christ,  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  apostle 
was  true  to  the  Master  he  loved,  and  was  in  earnest 
to  reveal  the  very  soul  of  the  new  doctrine.  But  the 
gospel,  for  that  day  and  that  audience,  took  this  form 
in  his  hands:  "he  reasoned  of  righteousness,  temper- 
ance, and  judgment  to  come,"  till  Felix  trembled  and 
said,  "  Go  thy  way  for  this  time,  when  I  have  a  con- 
venient season  I  will  call  for  thee."2  Before  Agrippa 
the  king,  in  like  manner,  nothing  falls  from  the  lips 
of  Paul  which  approaches  the  standard  of  scholastic 
theology.  After  relating  his  own  conversion  to 
Christianity,  and  the  change  of  his  whole  life  con- 

1  Acts  XX.  21.  2  ^cts  xxiv.  24,  25. 


IN    THE   NEW    TESTAMENT.  351 

sequent  upon  it,  he  maintains  Christ's  Messiahship 
and  shows  Jesus  to  be  none  other  "  than  that  which 
the  prophets  and  Moses  did  say  should  come  ; "  and 
with  such  effect  did  he  thus  exalt  his  Lord,  that 
Agrippa  said,  "  Almost  thou  persuadest  me  to  be  a 
Christian."! 

We  turn  back  to  the  only  passage  in  the  Acts 
bearing  on  the  subject  of  discussion,  which  has  been 
omitted  in  this  rapid  survey.  That  passage  has  been 
reserved  to  the  last,  because  it  seems  to  be  the  most 
distinct  and  explicit  of  all  that  are  found  in  this  book. 
It  is  in  chapter  xvi.,  verses  30,  31.  The  scene  is 
Philippi,  and  the  public  jail  of  the  city ;  the  time  is 
midnight.  We  say  nothing  of  the  prayers  of  Paul 
and  his  companion,  or  of  their  hymn  of  praise,  rising 
with  strange,  mysterious  effect  at  that  silent  hour, 
and  in  a  place  used  to  far  other  sounds  ;  we  say 
nothing  of  the  earthquake,  the  opening  of  the  prison 
doors,  or  of  the  terror  of  the  jailor  when  he  imagined 
that  his  prisoners  had  fled.  But  when  Paul  called 
out,  "  Do  thyself  no  harm,  for  we  are  all  here,''  it  was 
not  the  sudden  escape  from  a  great  peril^though  had 
the  prisoners  fled  his  life  would  certainly  have  been 
taken— it  was  not  this  only,  or  chiefly  which  affected 
the  jailor ;  but  the  eager  kindness  of  a  man  whom 
he  had  treated  with  brutal  cruelty,  produced  in  him  a 
revulsion  of  feeling,  thoroughly  overpowering.     '*'  He 

1  Acts  xxvi.  22,  28. 


352  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

called  for  a  liglit,  and  sprang  in,  and  came  trembling^ 
and  fell  down  before  Paul  and  Silas."  As  in  the 
flash  of  a  moment,  his  whole  life  was  revealed  to  him, 
his  savage  nature,  and  all  his  crimes,  and  he  cried, 
"  Sirs,  what  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  And  they  said. 
Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be 
saved,  and  thy  house." 

There  are  two  radical  mistakes,  easily  and  often 
made  in  the  interpretation  of  these  simple,  glorious 
words.  They  are  true,  true  always,  everywhere,  and 
for  every  human  being.  To  trust  in  incarnate,  re- 
deeming love  is  salvation.  But  on  the  one  hand,  it 
is  imagined  that  this  believing  is  the  act  of  a  moment 
or  of  an  hour,  a  completed  act ;  repeated  indeed,  but 
completed  at  the  time.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
imagined  that  the  salvation  resulting  is  also  a  com- 
pleted act,  an  act  of  God,  done  at  once,  and  for  ever, 
in  the  moment  of  believing.  You  shall  say  to  a 
sinful,  impenitent  human  being,  God  has  made  a 
perfect  atonement  in  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  for  all 
your  sins,  past,  present,  and  to  come,  and  He  requires 
nothing  more  than  that  you  simply  believe  this  fact. 
Believe  it,  and  in  that  moment  you  are  perfectly  and 
for  ever  pardoned,  and  accepted  as  perfectly  righteous 
in  the  sight  of  God,  because  he  counts  all  j^our  sins 
as  laid  upon  Christ,  and  Christ's  perfect  righteousness 
as  laid  upon  you  and  covering  you.    We  are  not 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  353 

now  to  argue  this  point,  which  has  been  done  already 
in  the  earlier  chapters,  but  we  seek  to  place  beside 
this  involved  and  complex  exposition  of  the  inspired 
words,  another  sense,  which  seems  more  natural  and 
more  true  to  the  facts  of  Christian  experience. 

In  general,  let  it  be  stated  that  the  believing  on 
the  part  of  man,  and  the  saving  on  the  part  of  God, 
are  not,  and  never  are,  merely  acts,  but  processes, — 
always  processes,  and  never  completed  till  the  last 
moment  of  life.  There  is  a  beginning  of  believing, 
a  first  act  of  believing,  if  you  will, — a  very  feeble, 
very  imperfect  act  of  a  mind  that  sees  and  knows 
very  little,  and  has  yet  great  ignorance,  great  preju- 
dice, great  error  to  overcome ;  many  struggles,  many 
fears,  and  much  bitter  experience  to  pass  through, — 
but  the  first  genuine  act  carries  in  its  bosom  the  seed 
of  its  necessary  perpetuation  and  aftergrowth,  so  that  it 
is  essentially  of  the  nature  of  a  process — a  constantly 
cumulative  and  corrective  process.  There  is  also  a 
beginning  of  salvation, — a  very  small  beginning  it 
always  is,  and  must  be.  Evil  in  the  soul  is  deep  and 
strongly  rooted.  The  root  is  struck,  but  it  will  not 
die  soon  or  easily.  The  soul  has  to  endure  a  long 
conflict,  and  only  with  the  last  cruel  wrench  of  life 
shall  it  be  delivered.  But  the  salvation  is  begun, 
and  the  beginning  of  believing  is  the  beginning  of 
salvation.     The  first  trustful  look  towards  God  in 

z 


354  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND   ALLUSIONS 

Christ,  towards  God  reconciling  us  to  Himself  by 
Christ  Jesus,  is  a  mortal  blow  to  sin  in  the  heart. 
And  the  more  intense,  the  more  fixed,  and  the  more 
loving  that  look  becomes,  ever  the  more  saving,  the 
more  redemptive,  because  the  more  destructive  of  sin, 
is  the  eflPect.  That  rude  and  ignorant  jailor  whom 
Paul  addressed,  was  suddenly  convinced ;  connecting 
what  he  had  before  heard  or  seen  of  his  prisoners  with 
what  he  had  himself  experienced,  he  was  convinced 
that  Paul  and  Silas  were  men  of  God  somehow,  and 
must  be  able,  if  any  on  earth  were,  to  guide  him  to 
truth,  and  peace,  and  salvation.  "  Believe  in  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  said  Paul ;  "  He  is  the  way  and 
the  truth  and  the  life.''  God  is  in  him  reconciling 
men  to  Himself,  and  he,  in  God's  name,  proclaims 
a  free  forgiveness  of  sins,  and  we,  as  His  ambassa- 
dors, proclaim  it  to  you, — be  not  afraid,  only  believe 
the  love  which  God  has  to  you,  and  you  shall  be 
saved.  You  will  find,  with  the  first  movement  of 
simple  trust,  a  new  power,  a  living  power  in  your 
nature,  putting  sin  to  death,  and  shedding  a  holy, 
sanctifying  peace  within,  such  as  you  never  knew. 

We  close  this  hasty  review  with  Paul's  own  mem- 
orable sentence,  which  reveals  both  the  secret  of  his 
experience  and  the  spirit  of  all  his  teaching, — "  This 
is  a  faithful  saying,  and  worthy  of  all  acceptation, 
that  Christ  Jesus  came  into  the  world  to  save  sinners, 


IN   THE   NEW    TESTAMENT.  355 

of  whom  I  am  tlie  chief.  Howbeit,  for  this  cause  I 
obtained  mercy,  that  in  me  especially  Jesus  Christ 
might  show  forth  all  long-suffering  for  a  pattern  to 
them  who  should  hereafter  believe  in  him  to  life 
everlasting." 


SECTION  THIRD— THE  GOSPELS. 

Hostile  Criticism — Its  Unsound  Basis — Sayings  and  Discourses  of 
Jesus — How  Preserved  and  Transmitted — Christ's  Soul,  their 
Fountain  —  Immeasurable  Superiority  —  To  Early  Christian 
Writings — To  Noblest  Heathen  Utterances — Exposition  of 
Passages — No  Expiation  or  Satisfaction — Must  have  been,  if 
True — Lord's  Prayer — Last  Supper— Calvary — After  Resurrec- 
tion— Olivet — Christ's  Teaching  Opposed  to  Satisfaction — 
Pharisee  and  Publican — Prodigal, 

THE  most  precious  portion  of  the  New  Testament 
writings,  it  will  hardly  be  questioned,  lies  within 
the  four  Gospels,  and  they  arc  also  the  very  portion 
against  which  the  attacks  of  hostile  criticism  have 
been  mainly  directed.  This  is  not  the  place,  even  if 
we  had  the  power,  to  discuss  the  authenticity  or  the 
genuineness  of  these  sacred  narratives,  but  wo  ven- 
ture to  express  the  conviction  that  the  mode  in  which 
Baar,  Strauss,  Schwegler,  and  the  school  to  which 
they  belong,  argue  respecting  the  Gospels,  is  most 
vicious  in  principle,  and  most  arbitrary  in  applica- 
tion. To  theorise  on  the  Petrine,  Pauline,  Ebionitish, 
Platonic,  Gnostic,  or  Montanistic  elements  of  belief, 


SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND    ALLUSIONS,    ETC.       357 

floating  in  Judea,  Egypt,  or  any  part  of  the  Eoman 
world  in  the  first  and  second  Christian  centuries,  and 
thence,  according  as  these  ancient  documents  are  im- 
agined to  harmonise  with  this  or  that  speculative 
tendency  or  school  of  opinion,  to  determine  their 
authorship  and  their  date,  may  give  scope  for  the 
display  of  great  learning  and  great  ingenuity,  but  is 
radically  unsatisfactory  and  unsound.  The  Gospels 
do  not  date  themselves,  and  within  certain  limits  their 
date  is  an  open  question,  but  it  is  one  which  cannot 
be  reached  by  scholarly  conjectures,  or  by  ingenious 
theories,  but  must  rest  entirely  on  historical  evidence. 
Either  it  is  a  matter  of  fact,  substantiated  or  rendered 
most  probable  by  sufficient  testimony,  that  the  Gospels 
of  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John  are  genuine  and 
authentic,  and  were  in  existence  at  such  and  such  a 
date,  or  it  is  not.  Obviously,  that  is  the  first  point 
before  all  others  to  be  settled,  on  its  proper  grounds. 
So  far  as  the  historical  evidence  goes,  it  will  appear 
that  about  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  four 
Gospels,  and  only  four,  were  recognised  by  the  Chris- 
tian community,  as  containing  authentic  accounts  of 
the  sayings  and  the  acts,  the  life  and  the  death,  of  our 
blessed  Lord.  If  any  one  can  believe  that  before  this 
date,  that  is  within  a  century  from  the  death  of  Christ, 
a  Gospel  professing  to  be  written  by  an  apostle  or  a 
disciple,  but  actually  not  so  written,  could  be  palmed 
upon  the  whole  Christian  people,  then  a  vast  multi- 


358  SACRIFICIAL   TEEMS    AND   ALLUSIONS 

tude,  and  accepted  by  them  as  genuine,  let  him  believe. 
After  this  date  such  a  thing  was  surely  impossible. 

The  critics  of  Tiibingen  are  keen-sighted  and 
laborious,  in  searching  out  what  they  deem  imper- 
fections, discrepancies,  inaccuracies,  even  contradic- 
tions in  the  Gospels.  Their  labours  certainly  tend  to 
disparage  in  every  possible  way  the  only  record  we 
possess  of  a  heavenly  life  on  earth,  and  to  silence  the 
only  echo  of  heavenly  utterances  that  yet  lingers 
among  men.  It  may  not  be — it  would  be  most  un- 
just to  assert  that  it  was — with  intent,  but  at  least  in 
effect,  they  foul  at  its  spring-head,  that  stream,  which 
is  life  and  salvation  to  the  world.  The  bitter  conser- 
vatism— the  crushing  bondage,  with  the  utter  loss  of 
free  speech,  in  the  region  of  politics  and  of  civil  insti- 
tutions, under  which  Germany  has  so  long  groaned, 
has  wrought  out  too  heavy  a  retribution  in  the  only 
fields  which  remained  open  to  the  galled  soul  of  the 
nation,  those  of  pliilosophy  and  theology.  Unright- 
eous repression  in  one  direction  has  punished  and 
avenged  itself  in  another,  by  an  extravagance  and  a 
wild  licence  of  speculation  unsurpassed  elsewhere. 
That  German  critics  in  assailing  the  Gospels  are  per- 
fectly honest  and  sincere,  we  do  not  for  a  moment 
question,  and  that  they  have  brought  to  their  task 
unusual  learning  and  laboriousness  is  palpable 
enough.  But  it  is  hardly  less  clear  that,  however 
upright  in  intention,  they  are  thoroughly  partial  and 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  359 

one-sided  in  fact.  From  the  first  they  set  out  with  a 
preconceived  theory — the  naturalistic,  the  mythic, 
or  the  philosophic — and  their  labour  is  to  adjust  the 
Gospels  and  make  them  fit  in  with  their  favourite 
theory,  dismissing  so  much  as  spurious,  and  discredit- 
ing this  as  a  blunder,  and  that  as  an  interpolation, 
with  the  most  lawless  freedom  and  the  most  cool 
assurance.  All  the  while,  most  manifestly,  a  fore- 
gone conclusion  is  in  their  minds.  Honestly  they 
investigate  and  toil,  but  it  is  to  mass  up  real  or  fancied 
grounds,  on  which  this  foregone  conclusion  may 
stand,  and  they  either  do  not  see  or  laboriously 
explain  away  whatever  tends  to  a  contrary  issue. 
Dispassionate  critics,  perfectly  open  on  all  sides,  they 
certainly  are  not,  but  prepossessed,  and,  therefore,  not 
impartial.  At  the  same  time,  it  can  hardly  be  ques- 
tioned that  the  school  even  of  Paulus,  and  still  more 
of  Baur,  has  done  real  and  much-needed  service.  It 
has  contributed  to  break  down,  we  trust  for  ever,  the 
old  reliance  on  tradition  and  ecclesiastical  authority, 
and  to  reveal  the  only  true  ground  of  an  intelligent 
faith.  Let  such  criticism  do  its  best  and  its  worst, 
without  hindrance.  A  free  press  is  sufficient  for 
itself  to  correct  its  own  errors,  sufficient  also  for  the 
protection  of  all  the  interests  of  righteousness  and 
truth,  without  vehement  anathemas,  ecclesiastical, 
civil,  or  social. 

It  falls  not  within  our  province  here  to  show  how 


360  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND    ALLUSIONS 

far  the  findings  of  hostile  criticism  have  either  been 
set  aside  or  largely  modified;  but  let  it  be  under- 
stood, that  the  sayings  and  discourses  of  Jesus  are 
imagined  to  be  the  least  reliable  portion  of  the  Gos- 
pels, and  that,  of  these,  the  least  reliable  of  all  are 
the  lengthened  discussions  and  addresses  in  the  Gos- 
pel of  John.  The  latter  are,  with  great  confidence, 
asserted  to  be  the  product  either  of  John  himself,  in 
harmony  with  what  he  knew  to  be  the  sentiments  of 
his  master,  or  more  probably  still,  of  some  later  dis- 
ciple of  John,  familiar  with  the  Ebionitish,  Platonic, 
and  Gnostic  ideas  afloat  in  the  Koman  world  at  the 
time.  The  impossibility  of  any  human  memory 
being  able  to  retain,  after  the  lapse  of  very  many 
years,  long  successions  of  thought,  and  exact  state- 
ments in  words,  is  appealed  to  as  invincible  proof  on 
this  point.  Of  course,  anything  like  supernatural 
influence  is  utterly  ignored.  But  we  must  maintain, 
even  on  very  general  and  very  palpable  grounds,  that 
it  is  not  reason,  but  unreason,  which  ignores  the 
inspiration  of  the  Gospels.  To  take  only  a  humble 
position,  can  it  be  deemed  unworthy  of  God,  in  a 
case  which  involved  the  highest  interests  of  all 
future  generations,  and  when,  for  good  or  for  evil, 
so  much  might  be  done  or  left  undone, — can  it  be 
deemed  unworthy  of  God,  by  His  own  living  Spirit 
of  truth  and  love,  to  have  presided  over  the  sacredest 
work  to  which  human  hands  were  ever  put,  and  to 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  361 

have  thus  secured,  that  the  result  should  be  such  as 
He  deemed  wisest  and  best?  To  take  even  lower 
ground  still,  the  lowest  of  all,  and  admitting  the 
faithlessness  and  feebleness  of  human  memory,  it 
is  not  hard  to  conceive  how,  with  perfect  natural- 
ness, a  trustworthy  account  of  the  very  utterances 
of  Jesus  may  have  descended  to  this  day. 

After  the  crucifixion,  resurrection,  and  ascension 
of  their  Lord,  when  the  truth  at  length  revealed  itself 
to  their  minds,  that  he  was  no  other  than  God  mani- 
fest in  the  flesh,  the  first  and  deepest  desire  of  the 
disciples  must  have  been  to  recall  and  preserve  all 
that  had  fallen  from  his  lips.  The  great  events  and 
acts  of  his  life  would  not  need  this  care  so  much ;  they 
were  prominent  and  striking,  and  would  not  easily 
or  soon  be  forgotten.  But  his  words,  which  had  im- 
pressed and  laid  hold  of  them  even  at  the  time,  and 
which  now  were  a  thousandfold  more  precious  than 
ever,  might  escape  their  memory,  and  must  by  all 
means  be  secured  and  treasured  up.  We  can  ima- 
gine how  they  would  go  back  in  thought  to  that 
living,  loving  voice,  to  which  they  had  so  often 
listened,  and  how  each  would  repeat  and  repeat  to 
himself  many  divine  sentences,  and  would  strive, 
time  after  time,  to  recall  more  and  yet  more,  until 
he  was  able  to  reproduce  much  which  he  had  heard, 
in  the  very  form  in  which  it  had  come  from  the  lips 
of  the  Master.     During  that  seven  days  of  waiting, 


362  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

which  closed  with  the  wonders  of  Pentecost,  it  is 
quite  within  the  range  of  high  probability,  that  part 
of  the  time  would  be  occupied  in  repeating  to  one 
another,  so  much  as  each  remembered  of  Christ's 
sayings,  and  in  carefully  comparing  and  bringing  to- 
gether their  several  recollections.  For  some  time 
after  the  crucifixion,  many  a  meeting  of  the  dis- 
ciples may  have  been  held  for  the  very  purpose  of 
refreshing  one  another  with  the  words  of  Jesus, 
and  of  extending  and  amending  their  various  con- 
tributions, until  at  last  they  could  feel  morally 
certain  that  they  were  able  to  present  nearly,  if  not 
quite  in  their  original  form,  all,  or  nearly  all,  the 
most  important  of  the  divine  utterances.  And  when 
they  went  forth  to  preach  in  Christ's  name  could  they 
fail  to  rehearse  what  had  once  touched  their  own 
souls  so  deeply,  and  on  their  fellow-disciples  not 
privileged  as  they  had  been,  and  on  their  converts, 
what  richer  boon  could  they  confer,  than  to  repeat  a 
conversation  or  a  discourse  of  the  Master. 

It  is  even  perfectly  conceivable,  and  it  is  natural  to 
think,  that  long  before  the  Gospels  of  Matthew,  Mark, 
Luke,  or  John  were  issued,  several  of  the  first  disciples 
for  their  own  use,  may  have  committed  to  writing 
their  recollections  of  Christ,  and  that  in  this  way 
many  Christian  converts  may  have  been  long  familiar 
with  the  substance,  and  even  the  form  of  what  we  now 
possess  under  the  name  of  Gospels.     One  step  further 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  363 

we  advance.  In  later  years,  when  the  necessities  not 
only  of  a  wide-spread  and  vast  Christian  community, 
but  of  a  whole  world,  to  which  the  glad  tidings  were 
commanded  to  be  proclaimed,  cried  loudly  for  a  faith- 
ful testimony,  to  the  life,  and  death,  and  work  of  the 
Kedeemer,  and  when  four  evangelists  were  raised  up 
to  meet  these  necessities,  shall  it  be  smiled  at  as  im- 
becility, or  denounced  as  fanaticism,  to  believe  that 
these  four  men  in  such  circumstances,  raised  up  and 
for  such  a  purpose,  each  preserving  and  acting  out 
his  own  individuality,  his  own  distinctive,  intellectual, 
and  moral  capabilities  and  tendencies,  were  neverthe- 
less all  aided,  directed,  and  controlled  by  a  special 
influence  from  above.  Such  imbecility  and  such 
fanaticism  be  ever  ours  ! 

Not  Jesus  but  John,  they  tell  us,  is  the  author  of 
the  addresses  and  discourses  in  the  fourth  Gospel. 
But  what  had  John  which  he  had  not  received  ?  He 
was,  what  communion  with  the  mind  and  spirit  of 
Jesus  had  made  him — no  more  I  at  best  a  reflection 
and  a  faint  reflection  of  "The  light  of  men."  It 
seems  infatuated  and  suicidal.  They  cannot  bring 
themselves  to  believe  that  the  Master  uttered  the 
words  imputed  to  Him,  but  they  are  able  to  believe 
that  the  disciple  conceived  and  put  into  form  ideas, 
the  like  of  which  all  heathen  and  Christian  antiquity 
cannot  produce.  "Who  was  this  John  ?  A  divinely- 
taught  man  without  doubt,  and  singularly  privileged 


364  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND   ALLUSIONS 

by  intimate  and  endeared  fellowsliip  with  the  Lord. 
But  was  he  connected  with  any  of  the  famed  schools 
of  philosophy  that  he  should  be  deemed  half  Platonist; 
half  Gnostic,  with  very  much  of  the  Ebionite  in  his 
nature  ?  Was  he  at  all  likely  to  have  known  much  of 
ancient  speculation,  or  indirectly  to  have  imbibed  its 
influences  ?  He  was  a  humble  fisherman  of  Galilee 
first,  and  afterwards  a  despised,  hard  working,  sufi'er- 
ing  apostle  of  Christianity;  but  he  was  a  singular  and 
a  noble  specimen  of  manhood,  nevertheless ;  and  his 
beautiful  idiosyncrasy  was  most  marked.  Originally 
of  vehement,  passionate  nature,  he  became  the  apostle 
of  love,  and  the  most  gracious  human  pattern  of  the 
divine  type.  John  was  the  best  beloved  of  all  the 
disciples,  and  that  must  mean  that  his  nature  had 
more  and  deeper  points  of  sympathy  with  Jesus  than 
any  of  the  others.  An  impressionable,  mystical, 
etherial  spirit,  he  was  drawn  more  powerfully  and 
nearer  than  the  rest,  to  the  mysterious  Saviour  of 
men,  and  drank  in  more  deeply  of  his  spiritual  in- 
fluence. Hence,  the  acts  and  events  of  Christ's 
ministry  we  have  in  the  other  evangelists,  but  the 
soul  of  Christ  is  revealed  chiefly  by  John. 

In  a  very  high  sense  the  Gospels  are  their  own 
evidence,  and  of  all  parts  of  the  Gospels,  the  con- 
versations, discourses,  and  sayings  of  Jesus  bear 
emphatic  testimony  to  themselves.  Who  could  have 
uttered  the  heavenly  words,  if  they  fell  not  from  the 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  365 

lips  of  Jesus  ?  Whence  could  tlie  thoughts,  the 
affections,  the  soul-experiences,  the  upward  breath- 
ings set  forth  in  the  Gospels,  have  come,  if  not  from 
the  soul  of  Jesus  ?  Where  in  heathen  literature,  or 
in  early  Christian  wi'itings,  shall  we  find  a  parallel 
to  the  sayings  and  discourses  of  Christ,  for  uniform 
and  continuous  and  sustained  simplicity,  purity,  lofti- 
ness, and  serene  decisiveness,  as  of  a  master  mind, 
who  was  ever  above  the  truth  he  uttered,  not  the 
truth  above  him.  If  these  be  not  divine,  there  is 
no  divine  thing  in  this  world, — so  profound,  so  far 
reaching,  so  just,  so  true,  so  pure,  so  high,  so  illumi- 
nating and  so  sanctifying.  They  touch  the  soul  at 
its  vital  centre,  and  compel  it  to  feel  and  own  the 
divine.  There  are  no  graces  of  speech,  no  ingenious 
turns,  no  fire  of  fancy,  no  richness  of  imagery,  and 
no  wealth  of  learning,  but  only  genuine,  heavenly 
truth,  out  of  the  eternal  fountain,  flowing  gently  and 
unpretentiously  from  lips  of  grace,  a  river  clear  as 
crystal,  a  pure  river  of  water  of  life,  for  the  healing 
of  the  nations. 

Take  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  the  conversation 
with  the  woman  of  Samaria,  the  story  of  the  death 
of  Lazarus,  the  parable  of  the  good  Samaritan,  or  of 
the  Pharisee  and  the  publican,  or  of  the  prodigal 
son,  or  take  the  discourses  and  the  prayer  at  the  last 
Supper  !  Place  these  by  the  side  of  the  best  Chris- 
tian writings  of  the  first  and  second  centuries,  those 


366  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

of  the  so-called  apostolic  fathers,  the  epistles  of  Cle- 
mens Komanus,  of  Polycarp,  of  Barnabus,  and  of 
Ignatius  !  How  poor,  with  whatever  merit  they 
possess,  how  weak,  how  manifestly  undivine  are  we 
not  obliged  to  feel  these  are  in  comparison  !  Place 
them  again  by  the  side  of  the  noblest  remains  of 
ancient  heathen  religious  and  moral  speculation  ! 
Take  the  sayings  of  Socrates,  the  ethics  of  Seneca, 
and  the  meditations  of  Marcus  AureKus,  certainly 
the  simplest,  the  purest,  and  the  truest  of  heathen 
utterances  anywhere  to  be  found  !  It  is  no  candour, 
but  only  mere  honesty,  to  admit  that  there  are  mar- 
vellous beauties,  genuine  truth,  and  lofty  virtue  in 
these  writings,  many  divine  conjectures  and  antici- 
pations, a  cleaving  of  the  darkness  sometimes,  and  a 
sudden  glow  of  light  through  the  cleft, — all  which 
can  be  explained  only  on  the  ground  of  a  divine 
teaching.  These  men,  amidst  darkness,  and  falsi- 
ties, and  vices,  were  surely  taught  of  God.  The 
Holy  Ghost  was  with  them,  in  their  measure,  and 
according  to  their  possibility  of  receiving  his  influ- 
ence. It  would  be  small  honour  to  Judaism,  or  to 
Christianity,  to  imagine  that  the  Spirit  of  God  had 
for  thousands  of  years  deserted  the  whole  world, 
except  an  insignificant  fraction  of  it.  The  earlier 
Christian  disciples  were  nobly  open  and  generous  in 
their  sentiments  on  this  question.  Justin  Martyr 
freely  and  joyously  recognised  the  divine  throughout 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  367 

the  better  portions  of  heathen  writings,  and  of  hea- 
then life.  Augustin  ^  refers  especially  to  Seneca  as 
most  wise  and  just  in  his  expressed  sentiments, 
though  in  practice  he  conformed  to  the  established 
worship.  Lactantius^  is  more  than  free,  almost  im- 
passioned in  his  admiration  of  Seneca.  "  How  many- 
other  things  does  this  heathen  speak  of  God,  like 
one  of  us."  *'  What  could  a  Christian  have  spoken 
more  to  the  purpose  in  this  case  than  this  divine 
Pagan." 

Place  by  the  side  of  Socrates,  and  Seneca,  and 
Marcus  Aurelius,  the  young  carpenter  of  Galilee — 
and  be  it  remembered  that  this  at  least  is  no  myth ; 
his  youth  and  his  social  position  have  no  possible 
relation  to  Jewish  preconceptions  and  Messianic  ideas ; 
quite  the  reverse  ; — place  this  youth,  thirty  years  of 
age,  uneducated,  (in  the  formal  sense  of  the  word,) 
untravelled,  unpatronised,  unprivileged,  by  the  side 
of  Socrates,  and  Seneca,  and  Marcus  Aurelius ;  place 
this  Jesus,  as  he  stood  on  the  mount,  or  at  the  grave 
of  Lazarus,  or  as  he  sat  wearied  and  faint  by  the 
well  of  Samaria,  or  oppressed  with  an  agony  of  sad- 
ness at  the  last  Supper  !  I  feel  as  if  it  were  impious 
to  name  comparison.  What  a  blending  is  here  of 
human  with  divine  sympathy,  tenderness,  and  wis- 
dom.    What  clear,  pure  utterances  !     What  quiet, 

1  De  Civit.  Dei,  lib.  vL,  cap.  10. 
*  Div.  Instit.,  lib.  vi.,  cap.  1  and  14. 


368  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND    ALLUSIONS 

meek,  yet  dignified  decision  in  dealing  with  minds 
and  with  the  truth  which  they  most  needed  to  know  ! 
What  simple,  elevated,  and  elevating  ideas  are  sug- 
gested to  the  soul,  as  he  speaks  !  We  are  lifted  up 
unawares  into  a  region  of  rare  and  holy  thought,  such 
as  even  Socrates  never  ascended,  we  wonder  as  the 
divine  atmosphere  silently  envelopes  and  enwraps  us, 
and  we  breathe  the  air,  and  feel  the  light,  and  hear 
the  soft,  deep,  eternal  symphonies  of  heaven  ! 

Gospel  is  a  marvellously  fitting  name.  Good 
tidings,  God's-spell,  the  divine  story  !  "  Behold,  I 
bring  you  good  tidings  of  great  joy,  which  shall  be 
unto  all  people."  "  And  suddenly  there  was  with  the 
angel  a  multitude  of  the  heavenly  host,  praising  God, 
and  saying.  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth 
peace,  goodwill  towards  men."  In  a  new,  a  more 
divine,  and  a  more  subduing  form.  Heaven  was  now 
to  communicate  with  earth.  From  the  first,  the  re- 
velation of  mercy  had  been  given  to  the  whole  world, 
but  it  had  been  buried  deep  under  the  Polytheism 
and  the  revolting  rites  of  Pagan  nations  ;  and  when 
for  a  time  and  for  the  highest  purposes,  it  was  com- 
mitted as  a  special  trust  to  the  custody  of  one  people, 
even  then  it  had  been  barely  preserved  through 
means  of  the  isolation,  and  the  inspirations,  and  the 
worship  of  Judea.  Once  more,  therefore,  in  :iew 
circumstances  it  was  to  be  proclaimed  unto  all 
nations,  and  God  was  to  be  seen  reconciling]:  men  to 


IN    THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  369 

Himself  by  the  mightiest,  the  divinest  of  means.  A 
Being,  such  as  never  trod  the  earth  before,  was  to 
announce,  and  by  his  life,  his  humiliation,  and  his 
death,  was  to  express  and  to  embody  God's  love  to 
men,  and  to  be  the  herald  of  a  free,  an  unconditional 
and  a  universal  amnesty. 

"  Thou,  child,"  said  Zacharias,  of  his  son  John 
Baptist,  "  shalt  be  called  the  Prophet  of  the  Highest, 
to  go  before  the  face  of  the  Lord  to  prepare  his  ways, 
to  give  knowledge  of  salvation  to  his  people,  m  the 
remission  of  their  sins."  ^  One  essential  part  of  the 
work  of  the  apostles  was  to  publish  over  the  wide 
earth,  in  Christ's  name,  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  by  a 
loving  though  a  holy  God.  Immediately  before 
leaving  the  earth  for  his  throne  in  the  heavens,  the 
Lord  declared  to  his  followers :  "  Thus  it  is  written, 
and  thus  it  behoved  the  Christ  to  suffer  and  to  rise 
from  the  dead  the  third  day,  and  that  repentance 
(change  of  mind)  and  remission  of  sins  should  be 
preached  in  his  name,  among  all  nations,  beginning 
at  Jerusalem."  2  But  that  which  was  to  be  pro- 
claimed so  freely  had  to  be  gained  at  immense  cost. 
In  a  very  memorable  instance,  rebuking  the  selfish- 
ness and  ambition  of  his  disciples,  Jesus  reminded 
them,  "  The  Son  of  man  came  not  to  be  ministered 
unto,  but  to  minister  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for 
many."  3     Simply,  but  touchingly,  the  profound  and 

1  Luke  i.  76,  77.  =  Luke  xxiv.  46,  47.  =*  Matt.  xx.  28. 

2a 


370  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND   ALLUSIONS 

mysterious  fact  was  thus  early  announced,  that  human 
redemption  was  to  cost  him  his  life.  Divine  wisdom 
and  love  found  no  other  means  of  extirpating  sin, 
and  of  reconciling  and  regenerating  man's  heart, 
than  incarnation,  humiliation,  and  death.  This  was 
literally  the  cost  of  salvation,  the  ransom-money  paid 
down  for  it. 

In  harmony  with  this  simple,  common  figure, 
there  lies  a  beautiful  sense  in  the  words  of  Jesus 
at  the  last  Supper :  '*  This  is  my  blood  of  the  new 
covenant,  which  is  shed  for  many,  for  (in  order 
to)  the  remission  of  sins."  i  In  like  manner,  using 
an  ancient  and  familiar  type,  the  Lord  thus  sym- 
bolises his  own  death  on  the  cross :  "As  Moses  lifted 
up  the  serpent  in  the  wilderness,  even  so  must  the  Son 
of  man  be  lifted  up,  that  whosoever  beUeveth  on  him 
should  not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life."^  There 
was  no  sacrifice  offered  to  God  by  the  lifting  up  of 
the  brazen  serpent,  neither  have  we  to  imagine  in 
our  Lord  a  mere  repetition  of  the  old  symbol ;  another 
brazen  figure,  another  serpent,  and  another  pole. 
The  obvious,  and  the  only  points  of  similitude  are  the 
exposure  to  universal  observation,  and  the  healing 
effect  that  followed.  In  direct  terms,  on  another 
occasion,  the  same  idea  is  conveyed,  "  I,  if  I  be  lifted 
up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me. "3  The  Crucified 
One  draws,  resistlessly  attracts,  the  hearts  of  men  by 

1  Matt.  xxvi.  28.  2  JoI^q  m  14  15,  3  john  xii.  32. 


IN    THE    NEW   TESTAMENT.  371 

an  invisible  power.  The  force  treasured  up  in  his 
cross  is  purely  a  moral,  a  spiritual  force,  the  force  of 
love,  of  pure,  self-sacrificing  love.  Hence,  immedi- 
ately after  the  reference  to  the  serpent  in  the  wilder- 
ness, these  words  follow :  "  For  God  so  loved  the 
world,  that  He  gave  His  only-begotten  Son,  that 
whosoever  believeth  on  him  should  not  perish,  but 
have  everlasting  life.  For  God  sent  not  His  Son 
into  the  world  to  condemn  the  world ;  but  that  the 
world  through  him  might  be  saved."i  Love,  mere 
pure  love,  God's  love  of  a  sinful  world,  is  the  reigning, 
the  sole  idea ;  but  a  love  at  the  same  time,  by  which 
as  is  uniformly  shown,  the  soul  of  Christ,  in  mysteri- 
ous harmony  with  the  Divine  Mind,  was  wholly 
possessed  and  ruled. 

"  I  am  the  good  shepherd:  the  good  shepherd  giveth 
his  life  for  the  sheep.  But  he  that  is  an  hireling,  and 
not  the  shepherd,  whose  own  the  sheep  are  not,  seeth 
the  wolf  coming,  and  leaveth  the  sheep,  and  fleeth ; 
and  the  wolf  catcheth  them,  and  scattereth  the  sheep. 
....  I  am  the  good  shepherd,  ....  and  I  lay  down 
my  life  for  the  sheep.  "2  The  sole  idea  is  love,  generous, 
self-sacrificing  love.  On  the  mount  of  transfiguration, 
Moses  and  Elias  appeared  in  glory  and  "  spake  of  the 
decease  which  he  should  accomplish  at  Jerusalem.''^ 
We  may  supplement,  if  we  wdll,  this  simple  state- 
ment, and  imagine  that  the  heavenly  visitants  dis- 

1  John  iii.  16, 17.        2  John  x.  11,  12,  14,  15.        ^  L^ke  ix.  31. 


Ot'Z  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND    ALLUSIONS 

coursed  of  satisfaction  to  divine  justice ;  but  it  is 
fancy,  mere  fancy,  without  a  shadow  of  foundation  in 
fact.  And  it  would  be  at  the  least  as  natural,  and 
certainly  more  in  unison  with  the  tone  of  that  world, 
to  which  these  glorified  beings  belonged,  to  conceive 
that  the  decease  at  Jerusalem  was  to  them  the  over- 
whelming expression  of  divine,  redeeming  love.  On 
the  last  night  of  his  life  amidst  darkness  and  sorrow, 
the  Lord  with  a  tender  hand  touched  the  deep 
principle  of  his  whole  work  on  earth,  and  said  to  his 
disciples,  "  greater  love  hath  no  man  than  this,  that  a 
man  lay  down  his  life  for  his  friends."^  We  venture  to 
add  an  inspired  apostle's  commentary,  "For  scarcely 
for  a  righteous  man  will  one  die ;  yet  peradventure 
for  a  good  man  some  would  even  dare  to  die.  But 
God  commendeth  His  love  toward  us,  in  that  while 
we  were  yet  sinners,  (enemies,)  Christ  died  for  us."2 
It  is  still  love,  only  love,  which  is  the  sole  idea. 

The  positive  evidence  to  be  found  in  the  Gospels, 
as  to  the  meaning  of  the  death  of  Christ,  is  literally 
exhausted  in  these  quotations,  and  every  passage,  we 
believe,  which  bears  directly,  in  the  most  distant  de- 
gree, on  the  subject,  has  been  noticed.  The  doctrine 
of  expiation,  or  satisfaction,  has  no  place  whatever  in 
the  words  of  Christ,  or  in  the  statements  of  the  evan- 
gelists. But  the  negative  proof,  if  we  may  so  speak, 
is  yet  stronger  still,  and  more  abundant. 

1  John  XV.  13.  2  ^Q^^  ^  7^  3^ 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  373 

However  we  may  attempt  to  account  for  the  ab- 
sence of  any  direct  statement  in  the  Gospels,  there  is 
one  ground  on  which  it  cannot  be  put,  namely,  that 
Jesus  avoided  allusion  to  his  own  death  at  all,  for  this  is 
conspicuously  not  true.  On  three  separate  occasions, 
at  least,  it  appears  that  he  distinctly  intimated  to  his 
disciples  the  certainty  of  his  death,  its  not  distant 
occurrence,  and  some  of  its  special  circumstances. 
Immediately  after  Peter's  avowal  of  his  faith  in  the 
Messiahship  of  his  Lord,  we  read,  "  from  that  time 
forth  began  Jesus  to  show  unto  his  disciples,  how 
that  he  must  go  unto  Jerusalem,  and  suffer  many 
things  of  the  elders  and  chief  priests  and  scribes,  and 
be  killed,  and  be  raised  again  the  third  day/'^  "And 
while  they  abode  in  Galilee,  Jesus  said  unto  them, 
The  Son  of  man  shall  be  betrayed  into  the  hands  of 
men :  and  they  shall  kill  him,  and  the  third  day  he 
shall  be  raised  again.  And  they  were  exceeding 
sorry."  2  "  And  Jesus,  going  up  to  Jerusalem,  took 
the  twelve  disciples  apart  in  the  way,  and  said  unto 
them.  Behold,  we  go  up  unto  Jerusalem ;  and  the 
Son  of  man  shall  be  betrayed  unto  the  chief  priests, 
and  unto  the  scribes,  and  they  shall  condemn  him  to 
death,  and  shall  deliver  him  to  the  Gentiles,  to  mock, 
and  to  scourge,  and  to  crucify  him :  and  the  third 
day  he  shall  rise  again."  ^  Let  us  now  suppose  that 
the  grand  purpose  of  the  death  which  was  thus  fore- 

1  Matt.  xvi.  21.  2  i^iatt.  xvii.  22.  ^  jy^^tt.  xx.  17-19. 


374  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

told,  the  one  fact  which,  gave  it  all  its  meaning,  and 
all  its  glory,  was  this,  that  by  means  of  it  Jesus  was 
to  make  expiation  for  human  sins,  and  to  purchase 
with  this  price,  from  God  a  free  forgiveness  for  men. 
For  what  reason  was  this  not  distinctly  stated  ?  nay 
more,  why  was  it  wholly  concealed  ?  Had  it  been 
really  true,  on  what  ground  of  wisdom,  of  upright 
dealing,  or  of  mere  kindness  to  the  disciples,  could  it 
have  been  kept  secret  ?  But  it  was  kept  secret ;  and 
we  are  compelled  to  judge  that  it  cannot  have  been 
true.  All  that  these  confiding  followers  learned  from 
their  Master  was  this,  that  he  was  doomed  to  death, 
to  crucifixion,  and  that  with  his  eyes  open,  deliber- 
ately and  voluntarily,  he  was  about  to  sacrifice  his  life 
in  Jerusalem,  and  on  a  cross. 

The  place  which  expiatory  sacrifice  holds  in 
scholastic  theology  must  be  fairly  understood.  It  is 
not  simply  one  of  many  truths,  all  equally  important, 
it  is  the  one  essential,  vital  truth,  which  makes  the 
gospel  the  gospel,  and  to  believe  which  is  salvation, 
and  to  disbelieve  which  is  condemnation.  A  human 
being  in  darkness  and  trouble  is  taught  to  look  to 
Christ,  to  Christ  alone,  for  salvation.  It  is  well, 
thoroughly  well ;  but  the  meaning  of  the  language, 
as  thus  employed,  requires  to  be  examined.  The 
man  is  in  fear  of  the  anger  of  God,  in  fear  of  an 
eternal  hell,  which  he  sees  before  him.  He  deserves 
God's  wrath  and  curse ;  and  how  shall  he  escape  ? 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  375 

In  this  way,  and  only  in  this  way,  according  to 
scholastic  theology.  There  are  two  distinct  points ; 
first  of  all,  Christ,  by  his  death  on  the  cross,  has 
borne  the  whole  punishment  of  human  sin  ;  secondly, 
the  man  who  believes  the  revealed  fact,  and  lays  hold 
of  Christ  as  his  surety  and  substitute,  is  infallibly 
pardoned  and  accepted  by  God,  on  this  ground,  but 
on  this  ground  alone,  and  no  other.  If  he  do  not 
believe  that  Christ,  by  his  death  on  the  cross,  has 
satisfied  all  the  claims  which  justice  and  law  have 
upon  him,  and  has  reconciled  a  holy  God  to  men, 
sinful  as  they  are,  there  can  be  no  salvation.  Were 
he  on  his  deathbed,  the  question  would  still  be,  on 
what  ground  do  you  look  for  pardon  from  God  ?  Is 
it  because  Christ  has  satisfied  divine  justice,  and 
made  a  full  expiation  for  sin,  and  on  this  ground 
alone,  or  is  it  not  ?  If  not,  there  could  be  no  scrip- 
tural warrant  for  hope.  The  man,  in  this  case,  mis- 
conceives and  dishonours  the  character  of  God,  and 
is  certainly  unsaved.  We  venture  to  declare,  with 
confidence,  that  no  such  teaching  as  this,  nor  even 
the  faintest  semblance  of  it,  w^as  ever  heard  by  a 
single  human  being  from  the  lips  of  the  Kedeemer. 
This  doctrine  must  either  not  be  essential  and  not 
even  important,  or  the  great  Saviour,  knowdng  it  to  be 
essential,  or  at  the  least  important,  for  some  inscrutable 
reasons  concealed  it,  and  suffered  the  multitudes  whom 
he  addressed  to  perish  in  complete  ignorance  of  it. 


376  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND    ALLUSIONS 

The  doctrine  of  reserve  and  of  gradual  progress  in 
divine  revelation,  true  anl  just  within  certain  limits, 
we  shall  find  singularly  incapable  of  application  in 
this  instance.  The  tree  reveals  a  long  and  slow  his- 
tory of  growth.  The  seed  does  not  start  in  a  night 
into  the  form  and  verdure  and  beauty  of  the  flower 
or  the  plant.  The  star  was  once  a  nebulous  speck, 
and  only  by  successive  attractions  and  accretions, 
through  a  thousand  cycles,  has  reached  its  consis- 
tency, magnitude,  and  figure.  The  sun,  at  its  rising, 
does  not  rush  forthwith  to  the  summit  of  the  sky. 
There  is  a  day-star,  a  dawn,  a  gradual  ascent,  till 
the  meridian  is  reached,  and  the  full  flood  of  light  is 
poured  down  on  the  earth.  A  wise  teacher  begins 
with  the  simplest  elements  of  knowledge,  and  only  as 
the  mind  of  the  disciple  opens,  and  his  powers  are 
strengthened  by  exercise,  he  advances  by  slow  degrees 
to  impart  higher,  and  still  higher  truth.  No  one 
doubts  that,  in  divine  revelation,  there  are  an  in- 
creasing clearness  and  fulness  as  the  ages  rolled  on, 
and  as  one  piece  after  another  of  inspired  writing  was 
given  to  the  world.  The  New  Testament  is  an  im- 
mense advance  on  the  Old  Testament.  But  there 
was  the  plainest  reason,  indeed,  an  absolute  neces- 
sity, in  this.  It  was  not  that  God  loved  to  keep 
back  His  truth — to  reveal  so  much  at  one  time,  and 
so  much  more  at  another — loved  this  method  for 
itself.    No,  never,  in  any  wise.    The  condition  and  the 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  377 

capabilities  of  mankind,  and  the  highest  interests  of 
truth  itself,  formed  always  the  ground  of  limitation. 
As  the  world  was  able  to  bear  and  to  appreciate  the 
light  of  Heaven,  it  was  shed  down,  in  the  divine 
wisdom  and  goodness.  As  the  world  was  prepared 
for  its  reception,  truth  was  announced,  and  in  such 
wise  as  should  best  promote  its  final  and  universal 
diffusion.  There  was  never  reserve  for  mere  reserve's 
sake. 

The  advance  from  the  Old  Testament  to  the  New 
is  manifest  and  great ;  but  the  advance  in  the  ISTew 
Testament  itself,  from  one  portion  to  another,  it 
would  not  be  easy  to  discover.  One  main  fact  seems 
to  1)0  overlooked,  on  which  the  best  authorities  are 
agreed,  namely,  that  of  the  four  Gospels,  one  was 
probably  the  very  last,  and  the  others  at  least  among 
the  last,  pieces  of  inspiration  given  to  the  world. 
The  Gospels,  as  parts  of  written  revelation,  were  not 
earlier,  but  later,  than  the  Epistles,  and,  according  to 
the  doctrine  of  progress,  they  ought  to  contain  the 
more  ample  disclosures.  Perhaps  they  do.  They 
are  remarkable,  not  for  reticence,  but  for  trans- 
parency and  breadth  of  statement.  Our  blessed 
Lord  showed  no  reserve  in  dealing  with  the  age  in 
which  he  appeared,  and  with  its  most  honoured 
names,  their  hypocrisy,  their  cruelty,  their  vices  ;  no 
reserve  as  to  the  Fatherhood  and  the  infinite  perfec- 
tions of  God,  as  to  the  human  soul,  the  future  state, 


378  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND   ALLUSIONS 

true  religion  in  the  heart,  true  worship,  or  as  to  the 
free  forgiveness  of  sins.  Not  to  his  own  discijoles 
only,  but  to  others,  individuals  and  assemblies,  to 
scribes  and  Pharisees  and  rulers,  he  announced  his  own 
Incarnation  in  the  freest  language.  "  Before  Abra- 
ham was,  I  am.''  And  from  his  disciples  at  least,  he 
did  not  conceal  even  his  death  and  his  cross.  But 
not  a  word  did  he  utter  of  satisfaction  to  divine 
justice. 

It  is  alleged  that  until  Christ  had  actually  died, 
and  until  the  sacrifice  for  sin  had  actually  been 
ofi'ered  up  to  God,  salvation,  on  this  ground,  could 
not  properly  have  been  published,  and  that  therefore 
it  was  left  to  the  apostles  to  unfold  what  the  peculiar 
circumstances  rendered  it  unsafe  and  unwise  to  an- 
nounce at  an  earlier  period.  It  is  very  difficult  to 
imagine,  though  the  thing  is  so  often  and  so  confi- 
dently declared,  in  what  way  a  want  of  wisdom  could 
have  been  shown  by  an  earlier  announcement,  or 
what  possible  danger  could  have  been  created  by  it. 
Our  Lord  announced  his  death,  why  not  its  purpop^*. 
if  it  had  such  a  purpose  ?  "Why  not  tell  of  pardon 
through  a  sacrifice  yet  to  be  offered  up  ?  If,  as  is 
believed  by  many,  the  ancient  sacrifices  were  in  any 
sense  expiatory,  or  if,  though  not  themselves  expia- 
tory, they  were  meant  to  teach  expiation,  and  even 
designed  to  prefigure  and  point  to  one  great  expia- 
tory sacrifice  for  gins,  at  the  fulness  of  the  times, 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  379 

where  had  been  the  hazard  in  our  Lord  connectino; 
this  existing  belief,  in  plain  terms,  with  his  own  life 
and  death  ?  On  the  contrary,  what  could  have  been 
more  simple,  more  easy,  more  natural,  than  for  him 
to  have  stated  the  fact?  Had  it  been  true,  what 
could  have  been  more  inevitable  than  that  he  must 
have  stated  it  again  and  again  ?  But  he  never  did. 
There  is  more  than  this.  If  salvation  depend  upon 
our  understanding  and  believing  the  judicial  ground 
of  forgiveness ;  if,  without  this,  we  dishonour  God 
and  endanger  our  souls,  then,  in  omitting  this  from 
his  personal  teaching,  Jesus  was  risking  the  eternal 
life  of  those  whom  he  addressed,  and  leaving  them 
to  perish.  But  he  does  omit  it,  uniformly,  invariably 
he  omits  it.  There  is  not  only  not  one  clear,  full  state- 
ment of  it  from  his  lips,  but  it  is  not  even  hinted  at. 
In  his  more  pubhc  addresses,  in  his  more  private 
interviews  with  his  disciples,  or  with  single  indi- 
viduals, it  is  not  once  hinted  at,  not  hinted  at  even 
on  certain  marked  occasions  by  and  by  to  be  noticed, 
when,  had  it  been  true,  it  must  have  been  announced 
unmistakably,  and  with  all  the  solemn  earnestness  of 
a  holy  and  loving  nature. 

The  beginning  of  Christ's  earthly  ministry  is  thus 
described,  "  Jesus  came  into  Galilee,  preaching  the 
gospel  (the  good  tidings)  of  the  kingdom  (the 
reign)  of  God,  and  saying.  The  time  is  fulfilled,  and 
the  kingdom  (reign)  of  God  is  at  hand :  repent  ye, 


380  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

(cliange  your  mind,)  and  believe  the  gospel," i  (the 
good  tidings.)  More  briefly  still,  another  evangelist 
writes,  "From  that  time  Jesus  began  to  preach,  and  to 
say.  Repent :  for  the  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand"^ — 
change  your  mind,  for  the  reign  of  God  is  at  hand. 
A  state  of  things  of  which  they  had  as  yet  no  idea, 
which  indeed  was  in  the  face  of  all  their  preconcep- 
tions, was  about  to  commence  ;  not  an  outward  king- 
dom at  all,  but  an  inward  reign,  a  reign  of  God,  that 
is,  a  reign  of  righteousness  and  purity  and  truth  and 
love  in  the  soul.  Far  other  views,  other  sentiments, 
and  another  spirit  than  now  possessed  them,  must 
rule  their  hearts,  if  that  reign  were  to  be  set  up 
within  them.     Repent  ye,  change  your  minds. 

The  scene  of  the  first  public  and  formal  exercise 
of  Christ's  ministry  was  a  mountain  in  Galilee.  A 
vast  multitude  was  before  him,  and  in  the  hearing  of 
thousands  he  uttered  that  sermon  whose  divine  com- 
prehensiveness, spirituality,  simplicity,  and  heavenly, 
holy  tone  it  were  vain  to  attempt  to  characterise. 3 
Some  of  its  short  sentences  few  can  hear  without  a 
sudden  rising  of  the  heart,  in  which  veneration  and 
wonder  blend  with  a  subduing  thankfulness  and  joy. 
"  Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit :  for  theirs  is  the 
kingdom  of  God.  Blessed  are  they  that  mourn  : 
for  they  shall  be  comforted.  Blessed  are  the 
meek:   for  they  shall  inherit  the   earth.      Blessed 

1  Mark  i.  14,  ]  5.       ^  jj^^^tt.  iv.  17.       '^  Matt.  v.  3,  and  onwards. 


IN    THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  381 

are  tlie  pure  in  heart :  for  they  shall  see  God."  But 
in  this  divine  sermon,  from  beginning  to  end,  there 
is  not  a  word,  not  a  hint,  not  a  breath  of  what  in 
those  dsivs  would  alone  be  called  the  gospel.  Our 
Master  either  did  not  believe  in  satisfaction  to  justice 
for  the  sins  of  men,  or  he  certainly  lost  one  of  the 
grandest  opportunities  ever  presented  to  him  of  pro- 
claiming it. 

Not  long  after  the  commencement  of  his  personal 
ministry,  Jesus  sent  out  the  twelve  disciples  and  at 
a  later  period  the  seventy,  two  and  two  together, 
to  traverse  Judea,  and  to  announce  everywhere  the 
coming  reign  of  God.  In  the  lengthened  and  minute 
and  faithful  instructions  which  he  addressed  to  them 
before  they  entered  on  their  mission,  there  is  not  even 
a  passing  allusion  to  expiation,  as  the  ground  of 
divine  forgiveness.  And  they,  when  in  obedience  to 
his  command  they  went  forth  on  their  heavenly 
errand,  what  did  they  announce  ?  Here  is  the  brief 
record,  "they  went  out  and  preached  that  men 
should  repent "  ^ — should  change  their  minds.  We 
may  connect  this  early  trust  committed  to  the  dis- 
ciples, with  the  last  charge  given  to  them  by  their 
Master,  immediately  before  his  departure  from  this 
world,  and  when  they  were  thenceforth  left  to  repre- 
sent and  interpret  his  thoughts  and  purposes  towards 
men.      *'  Go   ye   therefore,  and  teach  all  nations, 

1  Mark  vi.  12. 


382  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND    ALLUSIONS 

baptizing  them  into  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of 
the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost :  teaching  them  to 
observe  all  things  whatsoever  I  have  commanded 
you :  and,  lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end 
of  the  world."  "^  Not  a  word  even  here  at  the  iinal 
parting  between  Master  and  disciples,  of  expiation, 
as  if  this  were  the  one  embodiment  of  redeeming  love. 
On  two  occasions  at  least,  Jesus  assumed  in  the 
presence  of  men  the  highest  prerogative  of  God. 
Once,  announcing  the  pure,  free  mercy  of  Heaven,  he 
said  to  the  sick  of  the  palsy,  "  Son,  thy  sins  be  for- 
given thee ; "  and  when  the  scribes  charged  him  with 
blasphemy,  saying,  Who  can  forgive  sins  but  God 
only  ?  he  replied  by  a  question,  "  Whether  is  it  easier 
to  say  to  the  sick  of  the  palsy,  Thy  sins  be  forgiven 
thee  ;  or  to  say,  Arise,  take  up  thy  bed,  and  walk  ? 
But  that  ye  may  know  that  the  Son  of  man  hath 
power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins,  he  saith  to  the  sick  of 
the  palsy,  I  say  unto  thee,  Arise,  and  take  up  thy  bed, 
and  go  thy  way  into  thine  own  house."  ^  On  another 
occasion,  in  the  case  of  the  woman  who  was  a  sinner, 
Jesus  assumed  the  place  and  the  rights  of  very  God. 
Addressing  Simon  the  Pharisee,  at  whose  table  he 
sat,  and  pointing  to  the  Magdalene,  he  said,  *'  Her 
sins  which  are  many  are  forgiven,  for  she  loved 
much:  but  to  whom  little  is  forgiven,  the  same 
loveth  little.     And  he  said  unto  her," — purely  out  of 

1  Matt,  xxviii.  19,  20.  «  j^ark  ii.  5,  7,  9,  11. 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  383 

that  loving  heart  of  his,  which  ere  long  bled  on  the 
cross,  and  because  he  saw  in  her  that  self-abasement 
and  dependence  which  God  ever  blesses — "  thy  sins 
are  forgiven."  i 

These  are  not  the  only  instances  in  which  w^e  learn 
that  it  is  the  reigning  spirit  within  a  man  which  tests 
and  proves  his  real  state  before  God.  The  redeeming 
mercy  of  Heaven,  the  dying  love  of  the  Saviour, 
touches  and  changes  the  heart,  strikes  in  order  at 
last  to  kill  the  evil  that  is  in  it,  and  creates  in 
its  stead  a  humble,  unfeigned,  and  loving  spirit. 
Divine  mercy  is  first,  and  is  the  cause  of  spiritual 
change,  not  the  change  the  cause  and  ground  of 
mercy.  But  the  effect  follows  necessarily  from  the 
cause.  If  there  be  no  effect,  we  infer  the  absence  of 
the  cause,  and  conclude  that  the  relation  of  the  human 
soul  to  God  must  be  yet  unaltered.  Hence  we  read, 
"If  ye  forgive  men  their  trespasses,  your  heavenly 
Father  will  also  forgive  you ;  but  if  ye  forgive  not 
men  their  trespasses,  neither  will  your  heavenly 
Father  forgive  your  trespasses."  2  The  unforgiving 
soul  proves  itself  to  be  the  unforgiven  soul.  Pardon 
is  not  an  arbitrary,  capricious  favour  forced  on  men, 
will  they  or  will  they  not ;  it  is  ours  only  if  we  truly 
seek  it,  and  that  true  seeking  is  incipient  faith  in  the 
Loving  One,  it  is  the  child-spirit,  the  first  real  return 
of  the  heart  to  God.    This  truth  is  revealed  with  won- 

1  Luke  vii.  47,  48.  2  ^att.  vi.  14,  15. 


384  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

derful  clearness  in  our  Lord's  representation  of  the 
final  judgment.^  A  line  of  sej)aration  is  supposed  to 
be  drawn  between  the  good  and  the  bad.  On  the 
one  side  of  that  line  then,  are  we  to  find  those  who 
have  understood  how  to  reconcile  divine  government, 
and  justice,  and  law,  with  divine  forgiveness — those 
who  have  pled  for,  and  might  indeed  have  demanded 
acquittal,  because  Christ  had  borne  the  full  penalty 
of  their  sins,  and  set  them  perfectly  free  from  all 
claims  whatever  ?  And  on  the  other  side  of  that 
line,  are  we  to  find  those  who  have  either  not  known 
or  not  been  able  to  discover  in  the  New  Testament 
this  imagined  imputation  ?  Not-  at  all.  Not 
the  faintest  indication  is  given  of  any  sueh  thing. 
Men  are  tried  before  God,  and  their  real  state  is 
proved  by  the  spirit  which  is  in  them,  and  nothing 
else.  If  the  holy  mercy  of  Grod,  if  redeeming  love  in 
Christ,  has  really  touched  their  nature,  and  begun  to 
assimilate  them  to  itself,  so  that  in  the  spirit  of  un- 
feigned loving-kindness,  it  has  been  in  their  hearts, 
even  though  not  in  their  power,  to  feed  the  hungry, 
and  to  clothe  the  naked,  and  to  do  only  good  to  all ; 
then,  but  only  then,  shall  the  Great  Judge  say  to 
them,  "  Come  ye  blessed  of  my  Father,  inherit  the 
kingdom  prepared  for  you  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world/' 
In  strict  harmony  with  these  principles  of  judg- 


IN    THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.  385 

ment  is  the  mode  in  which  Jesus  tested  certain  indi- 
vidual characters,  who,  along  with  not  a  little  which 
was  good,  were  nevertheless  radically  wanting  and 
wrong.  Wliat,  of  all  things  he  looked  to,  in  any 
case,  was  the  spirit,  the  pervading,  reigning  spirit  of 
a  man's  soul.  "Whosoever  shall  not  receive  the 
kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child  shall  in  nowise  enter 
therein."  A  humble,  docile,  trustful,  childlike  state  of 
mind  is  everything  in  religion — the  spring  of  all  the 
highest  good.  *'  And  a  certain  ruler  asked  him  say- 
ing, Good  Master,  what  shall  I  do  to  inherit  eternal 
life  ?  "  1  This  was  an  example  of  a  religious  inquirer, 
as  we  should  speak ;  and  now,  if  ever,  the  very  truth, 
and  above  all  the  most  essential  truth,  would  certainly 
be  announced  by  him  who  was  emphatically  sent 
forth  to  bear  witness  to  truth.  But  not  a  reference 
is  made,  even  in  such  a  case  as  this,  to  what  is  now 
proclaimed  as  the  essence  of  Christianity.  Jesus 
perceived  that  there  was  a  radical  want,  a  radical 
evil  in  the  character  of  this  young  ruler.  Instead  of 
self-surrender  and  submission  to  God,  he  was  cherish- 
ing at  the  moment  a  conscious  reserve  on  one  point, 
and  a  deep  resistance  to  the  highest  claims,  which 
was  fatal  to  the  whole  of  his  imagined  religion. 
*'  Sell  all  that  thou  hast,  and  distribute  unto  the  poor, 
and  thou  shalt  have  treasure  in  heaven."  Our  Lord 
touches  the  root  of  bitterness,  reveals  this  deceived 
1  Luke  xviii.  17, 18. 

2b 


386  SACRIFICIAL  TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

heart  to  itself,  and  leaves  the  revelation  to  work 
within  with  silent  force.  Perhaps  the  ruler  yielded 
to  the  light  thus  shed  on  his  nature,  and  to  the 
teaching  and  striving  of  God's  Spirit  within  him. 
We  know  not ;  but  there  can  he  no  salvation  without 
unreserved  and  entire  seK-surrender. 

On  another  occasion  we  read,  "  A  certain  lawyer 
stood  up  and  tempted  him,  saying,  Master,  what  shall 
I  do  to  inherit  eternal  life  ?  "  i  It  was  a  momentous 
question,  though  the  questioner  might  be,  and  pro- 
bably was,  dead  to  its  profound  meaning.  He  little 
merited  a  reply,  but  Jesus  was  not  one,  at  any  time, 
who  if  asked  for  bread  would  offer  a  stone.  This 
lawyer  had  an  immortal  nature  to  be  saved  or  lost — 
that  was  enough.  He  had,  besides,  himself  created 
the  occasion  for  close  spiritual  dealing,  and  had  ex- 
pressly invited  instruction  respecting  the  method  of 
salvation.  Was,  then,  this  singular  and  precious 
opportunity  lost  ?  lost  by  one  who  loved  the  souls  of 
men,  and  died  for  them  ?  It  certainly  was.  If  we, 
in  these  days,  are  right  in  our  ideas  of  the  gospel, 
our  Master  was  certainly  wrong.  For  how  does  he 
proceed?  Again,  as  in  the  former  example,  he 
touches  the  core  of  this  man's  spirit,  and  makes  it 
naked  to  itself.  The  nature  of  moral  excellence — 
love  of  God  and  love  of  man — is  unfolded,  and  then 
follows  the  parable  of  the  good  Samaritan,  teaching 
»  Luke  X.  25-37. 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  387 

that,  apart  from  descent,  or  outward  privilege,  or 
creed,  it  is  only  when  the  soul  has  been  divinely 
reached  and  assimilated — only  when  the  nature  has 
been  subdued  to  humble,  pure,  loving-kindness — 
that  it  is  safe  before  God,  eternally  safe.  "  Go,  and 
do  thou  likewise,"  was  the  command,  —  not  only 
copying  the  act,  but  filled  with  the  spirit  of  the  good 
Samaritan. 

On  another  occasion  still,  and  under  different 
circumstances,  we  arrive  at  the  same  idea  of  our 
Lord's  teaching.  The  case  was  that  of  a  Koman 
centurion,^  —  a  soldier,  a  Gentile,  a  Pagan.  That 
he  must  have  seen  and  heard  Jesus,  perhaps  re- 
peatedly, before  this,  seems  evident,  for  another 
than  the  spirit  of  Paganism  had  already  largely 
entered  into  his  soul,  and  he  was  possessed  with 
the  settled  conviction  that  Jesus  was  from  above, 
a  messenger  of  the  true  God.  And  when  he  came, 
beseeching  that  his  servant  might  be  healed,  and 
when  the  Master  said,  "  I  will  come  and  heal  him," 
he  replied,  "  Lord,  I  am  not  worthy  that  thou  shouldst 
come  under  my  roof,  but  speak  the  word  only  and  my 
servant  shall  be  healed/'  In  these  words,  and  in  the 
tone  and  look  of  the  man,  it  was  shown  beyond  doubt 
that  his  spirit  was  deeply  reverent,  and  humble,  and 
trustful.  The  core  of  his  nature  was  all  right  before 
God,  Jesus  himself  pronounced  it  all  right,  and  said, 

1  Matt,  viii.  7-8,  10-11. 


388  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

"  I  have  not  found  so  great  faith,  no,  not  in  Israel," 
and  immediately  added  these  inspiring  words,  "  I  say 
unto  you,  that  many  shall  come  from  the  east,  and 
from  the  west,  and  shall  sit  down  with  Abraham,  and 
Isaac,  and  Jacob  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 

The  woman  of  Samaria  ^  was  not  a  Pagan-born, 
like  Cornelius,  but,  half  Jew,  half  Gentile,  her  con- 
dition was  little  above  that  of  a  heathen.  To  her, 
surely,  Jesus  would  at  least  convey  what  was  essential 
to  salvation.  In  a  lengthened  interview,  as  it  seems 
to  have  been,  there  was  abundant  opportunity  of  ad- 
dressing her  conscience  and  her  heart,  and  of  so  pre- 
senting the  grounds  of  pardon,  as  we  speak,  that  her 
soul  might  be  saved.  Did  our  Lord  embrace  the 
opportunity  ?  Undoubtedly  he  did  not,  if  the  pre- 
vailing ideas  of  the  method  of  salvation  be  just. 
Never,  perhaps,  with  more  sublime  simplicity  did 
the  Great  Teacher  discourse  of  the  very  loftiest 
truths — the  nature  of  God,  the  nature  of  worship, 
and  the  nature  of  religion  in  the  human  soul — than 
on  this  very  humble  occasion,  in  a  lonely  place,  as 
he  sat  wearied  and  faint  by  the  well  of  Jacob,  and 
spoke  to  a  single  auditor,  a  poor  Samaritan  woman. 
But  the  astounding  fact  is,  that  all  the  while  not  a 
word  of,  what  would  now  be  called  by  many,  the 
gospel,  was  uttered — notliing  of  expiation  of  sin,  and 
nothing  of  pardon  grounded  in  expiation.     Explain 

^  John  iv.  7-42. 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  389 

it  how  we  may,  this  is  the  fact,  and  either  we  on  this 
point  are  altogether  wrong,  or  our  Master  is.  It  must 
be  noted,  besides,  that  when,  on  the  report  of  the 
woman,  the  people  of  the  town  came  to  see  and  hear 
for  themselves,  and  were  not  less  affected  by  the 
divine  words  and  the  divine  spirit  of  Jesus  than  she 
had  been,  they,  too,  had  learned  no  gospel,  no  such 
method  of  salvation,  as  is  now  so  widely  honoured.  All 
they  said  was  this,  "  We  have  heard  him  ourselves, 
and  know  that  this  is  indeed  the  Christ,  the  Saviour 
of  the  world."  Neither  in  this  nor  in  any  single  in- 
stance on  record,  do  we  find  that  any  human  being 
having  heard  the  words  of  Jesus,  left  him  declaring 
that  he  had  learned  the  doctrine  of  forgiveness 
through  the  expiation  of  sin. 

The  Lord's  Prayer  i  is  justly  regarded  with  great 
reverence  by  those  who  love  the  New  Testament. 
All  acknowledge  readily,  however  far  they  be  from 
acting  on  the  acknowledgment,  that  it  is  the  model 
of  true  Christian  prayer.  That  Jesus  selected  words, 
either  wholly  or  in  part,  which  were  already  in  use 
among  the  Jews  in  their  worship,  does  not  affect  the 
case  in  the  least.  The  prayer  is  invested  with  all 
his  authority,  and  the  words  are  such  as  he  thought 
fittest  and  best,  as  much  so,  as  if  they  had  been 
uttered  for  the  first  time,  and  by  his  lips  alone. 
Short  as  it  is,  no  one  who  reverences  its  Author 

1  Matt.  vi.  9,  13. 


390  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

will  believe  that  anything  essential  can  have  been 
omitted  from  it.  It  is  provided  for  the  use,  not 
of  one  nation,  or  one  age,  or  one  class,  but  of  all 
men,  of  all  classes,  and  of  all  times.  Any  sinful 
human  being,  in  any  part  of  the  earth,  has  a 
right  to  utter  it,  in  order  to  express  his  desires 
to  God,  and  in  uttering  it,  under  the  guidance 
of  the  holy,  and  wise,  and  loving  Kedeemer,  he  is 
surely  at  the  least  secured  against  the  possibility  of 
leaving  out  what  it  is  most  essential  for  him,  in  such 
an  act,  to  address  to  the  God  against  whom  he  has 
sinned.  What,  then,  does  Jesus  authorise,  encour- 
age, command  us  to  say,  when  we  kneel  before  God  ? 
The  question  is  a  very  vital  one.  Are  we  taught  to 
ask  forgiveness,  on  the  ground  of  expiation,  and  to 
think  of  God  as  a  righteous  Judge,  whose  anger  has 
been  appeased  by  sacrifice,  and  who  will  do,  for  the 
sake  of  one  who  has  acted  the  part  of  man's  friend, 
what  He  would  not,  or  could  not  do  for  His  own  blessed 
sake,  and  out  of  the  pure,  free  love  of  His  own  na- 
ture ?  No,  by  no  means.  Nothing  like  this  is  sug- 
gested, or  by  any  possibility  involved.  The  prayer 
contains  a  distinct  reference  to  sin ;  but  it  is  to  this 
effect,  and  no  more,  "  Forgive  us  our  debts  as  we 
forgive  our  debtors."  Two  short  additional  sentences 
bring  the  prayer  to  its  amen;  and  then  immediately 
follow  the  words,  which  have  been  already  quoted  and 
explained, — "  For  if  ye  forgive  men  their  trespasses, 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  '691 

your  heavenly  Father  will  also  forgive  you;  hut 
if  ye  forgive  not  men  their  trespasses,  neither  will 
your  heavenly  Father  forgive  your  trespasses."  The 
reigning  spirit  within  a  man  is  everything.  The 
unforgiving  is  the  unforgiven.  But  if  divine,  redeem- 
ing love  has  gained  an  entrance  into  the  soul,  and 
has  hegun  to  assimilate  and  conquer  it,  this  means 
that  the  nature  is  restored  to  God,  once  and  for  ever. 
"  In  that  day  thou  shalt  say,  0  Lord,  I  will  praise 
thee :  though  thou  wast  angry,  thine  anger  is  turned 
away,  and  thou  comfortest  me."  i 

We  pass  to  the  closing  scenes  of  our  Lord's  life  on 
earth,  to  the  night  on  which  he  was  betrayed,  when 
his  disciples  were  gathered  around  him  at  the  Last 
Supper,  and  he  addressed  them  in  the  divinest  words 
ever  heard  by  men.  That  short  section  of  John's 
Gospel,  from  the  thirteenth  to  the  seventeenth  chap- 
ters inclusive,  contains  inspirations  so  intensely  spi- 
ritual, so  lofty  and  so  pure,  as,  if  they  had  stood  quite 
alone  in  the  New  Testament,  would  have  rendered 
it  priceless  to- all  generations.  Who  can  worthily 
represent  the  simple,  marvellous  openings  into  regions 
of  heavenly  truth,  as  rare  as  they  are  ineffably  glori- 
ous ;  or  the  assuring  promises  of  another  Teacher  and 
Comforter,  when  his  own  visible  presence  was  with- 
drawn ;  or  his  holy,  and  far-reaching  counsels ;  or  his 
kindly  but  faithful  warnings  of  persecution  and  of 

^  Isa.  xii.  1. 


392  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS   AND    ALLUSIONS 

coming  evil ;  or  his  words  of  courage  and  comfort ; 
or  his  gentle,  mournful  hints  of  his  own  departure ; 
or  the  tender  expressions  of  his  sympathy  and  love  ? 
But  surely  now,  at  last,  if  before  there  had  ever  been 
reserve  on  the  most  pressing  of  all  subjects,  Jesus,  by 
the  force  of  affection,  and  by  the  urgency  of  the  cir- 
cumstances, would  be  compelled  to  break  through  it, 
and  to  state  plainly  and  fully  the  meaning  of  his  own 
death.  But,  with  the  cross  close  at  hand,  and  full  in 
view,  nothing  is  said,  literally  nothing,  to  those  whom 
he  tenderly  loved,  and  from  whom  he  was  now  to  be 
torn  away,  of  that  which  is  supposed  to  be  its  true 
meaning  and  its  chief  glory.  The  supposition  must 
be  an  entire  misapprehension,  unless  we  would  charge 
our  Lord  with  a  want  of  common  honesty,  and  with 
a  disregard  of  the  duties  of  ordinary  friendship. 
Even  in  the  institution  of  the  holy  Supper,  when  the 
occasion  was  literally  thrust  upon  him,  to  speak  with 
perfect  plainness,  we  can  find  no  reference  to  expia- 
tion of  sin  by  sacrifice.  "  This  is  my  body,  which 
is  given  for  you:  this  do  in  remembrance  of  me." 
"  This  cup  is  the  new  testament  in  my  blood,  which 
is  shed  for  you."  i  In  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  already 
quoted,  we  read — "This  is  my  blood  of  the  new 
testament  which  is  shed  for  many,  for  (in  order  to) 
the   remission   of   sins."       These   words   announce 

1  Luke  xxii.  19,  20. 


IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.  393 

simple  facts,  which  were  soon  to  stand  forth  in  all 
their  dark  significance.  Very  shortly  thereafter,  his 
body  was  literally  given,  and  his  blood  was  literally 
shed,  for  men — literally  for  men's  sins,  literally  in 
order  to  the  remission  of  sins.  His  death,  like  his 
life,  was  meant  for  nothing  else  than  to  take  away 
sins,  not  in  a  legal,  fictitious  sense,  but  literally  and 
actually.  He  died  to  make  a  real  end  of  sin.  Of  all 
powers  on  earth,  his  cross  has  proved  itself  the 
mightiest,  in  expelling  sin  out  of  the  heart  of  man, 
and  out  of  the  world.  Hence,  in  that  prayer,  which 
stands  forth  a  glory  by  itself,  even  in  this  highest 
heaven  of  inspirations,  Jesus,  addressing  the  Father, 
says — "  This  is  life  eternal,  that  they  might  know 
thee,  the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ,  whom 
thou  hast  sent."  i  To  know  God — to  know  God  in 
Jesus  Clirist;  to  see  Him,  out  of  His  mere,  pure 
love,  surrendering  His  Son — giving  his  body  to  be 
broken,  and  his  blood  to  be  shed ;  to  know  God  as 
thus  drawing  and  reconciling  men  to  Himself  by 
Christ :  this  is  the  destruction  of  sin  in  the  heart — 
this  is  salvation — this  is  life,  eternal  Hfe. 

Follow  the  Kedeemer  to  the  garden  of  Geth- 
semane,  thence  to  the  Sanhedrim,  with  Caiaphas 
at  its  head,  thence  to  the  judgment  hall  of  Pilate, 
the  Eoman  governor,  and  thence  to  Calvary  and 

1  John  xvii.  3. 


394  SACKIFICIAL   TERMS   AND   ALLUSIONS 

the  cross  1  Surely,  if  it  had  been  in  the  least  de- 
gree true  that  he  was  making  expiation  for  sin, 
and  satisfying  divine  justice,  some  hint,  some  allu- 
sion, which,  at  the  least,  might  be  intelligible  to 
his  disciples,  would  now  drop  from  his  lips.  We 
pass  to  his  resurrection,  and  to  his  interview  with 
his  disciples  after  that  event.  Surely  all  reserve 
must,  at  least,  then  have  been  laid  aside.  His  death 
had  been  accomplished,  expiation  for  sin,  as  is  sup- 
posed, had  been  made,  and  there  could  now  be  no 
possible  cause  for  concealment  or  hesitation.  He 
cannot  have  left  his  disciples,  during  these  resurrec- 
tion days,  in  ignorance  of  that  which  was  to  be  the 
burden  of  their  message  to  the  world.  At  all  events, 
on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  when  he  looked  on  them  for 
the  last  time  before  he  ascended  to  his  glory,  and 
they  were  to  be  left  alone  in  the  world  intrusted 
with  his  Grospel,  some  clear,  decisive  words  would 
be  spoken  respecting  what  is  imagined  to  be  the 
central  truth  of  salvation.  But  no ;  if  expiation  for 
sin  and  satisfaction  to  justice  be  a  doctrine  of  the 
New  Testament,  at  least  it  was  never  heard  by  any 
human  being  from  the  lips  of  our  Lord,  from  the 
beginning  to  the  close  of  his  ministry  on  earth. 

This  is  not  all.  The  direct  teachings  of  the  gos- 
pel are  not  only  wanting  in  the  supposed  doctrine — 
they  are  diametrically  opposed  to  it.     With  the  ex- 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  395 

amination  of  only  two  out  of  many  passages,  in 
support  of  this  position,  we  close  this  rapid  survey 
of  the  Gospels.  The  parable  of  the  Pharisee  and 
the  Publican  1  is  a  simple  picture  of  ritual  and  of 
real  religion,  the  religion  of  outward  observance, 
and  the  religion  of  the  soul.  The  Pharisee  uses 
the  language — we  need  not  suppose  insincerely — 
of  gratitude  to  God  for  what  he  was,  and  for  what 
he  was  conscious  of  having  done,  but  there  is  no 
symptom  in  him  either  of  a  sense  of  sin,  or  of  any 
need  of  pardon.  Such  imperfections  and  faults  as 
he  was  conscious  of  did  not  trouble  or  burden  him, 
— at  all  events,  they  did  not  draw  him  to  the  foot- 
stool of  God  to  beg  forgiveness. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  class  of  publicans  were 
most  hateful  to  the  Jews,  perhaps  often  deservedly 
so,  and  this  publican  may  have  been  no  better  than 
most  of  his  order.  But  whatever  he  may  have  been 
formerly,  he  is  so  presented  to  us  here,  that  we  are 
able  to  judge  satisfactorily  of  what  he  now  was. 
''  Standing  afar  off,  he  would  not  lift  up  so  much  as 
his  eyes  towards  heaven,  but  smote  upon  his  breast 
saying,  God  be  merciful  to  me  a  sinner."  Not  his 
words  only  but  his  look,  his  tone,  his  attitude,  and 
his  very  significant  action,  all  prove  that  he  was  in  the 
deepest  earnestness,  and  that  he  found  refuge  nowhere 

^  Luke  xviii.  10. 


396  SACRIFICIAL   TERMS    AND   ALLUSIONS 

but  in  the  pure,  free  mercy  of  God.  Very  humbly 
very  timidly,  he  trusts  in  mercy,  God's  mercy.  But 
he  trusts,  and  this  is  the  very  state  of  mind  which 
a  true  sense  of  mercy  always  creates,  which,  above  all, 
Incarnate,  dying  love  creates,  and  is  meant  to  create. 
Kevealing  as  it  does,  a  pitying,  forgiving  God,  by 
this  very  means  it  exposes  the  horrible  nature  of  sin, 
and  generates  a  profound  self-abhorrence.  This 
publican  has  no  plea  to  put  forward,  no  idea  of  his 
sins  having  been  expiated,  or  of  its  being  possible  to 
expiate  them,  and  no  ground  whatever,  on  which  to 
plead  for  pardon  except  pure,  free  mercy ;  but  he  does 
trust  in  this,  tremblingly  he  trusts  in  this.  It  is 
enough.  "  I  tell  you  this  man  went  down  to  his 
house,  justified  rather  than  the  other.''  Justified  ? 
we  ask — without  satisfaction  to  justice?  Without 
the  full  execution  of  the  threatened  penalty  ?  With- 
out an  imputed  righteousness  to  cover  his  polluted 
soul  ?  Yes,  verily  so.  Our  blessed  Lord  says, 
"justified,''  that  is,  rightened,  his  inner  nature  set 
right — "  rather  than  the  other."  The  other  was  only 
wrong,  all  wrong;  his  spirit,  satisfied  in  itself,  was 
just  therefore  quite  away  from  God.  But  the  pub- 
lican was  really  rightened,  his  nature  was  turned 
right  towards  God,  the  fountain  of  mercy,  of  pardon, 
and  of  all  blessing.  Wherever  a  human  being  truly 
feels  the  burden  of  inward  evil,  and  is  penetrated 


IN   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.  397 

and  subdued  by  the  thought  of  divine  love,  and  trusts 
in  pure,  mere  mercy,  he  is  justified,  Tightened  before 
God,  and  the  very  highest  purpose  of  the  cross,  and 
of  the  bleeding  Lamb  that  hung  upon  it,  is  to  create 
and  secure  this  result. 

More  touching,  more  simple,  more  divine  still,  is 
the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son.  Where  in  this 
heavenly  story,  is  there  any  single  shred  or  shadow 
of  the  complicated,  logical  plan  of  justification? 
Nowhere,  absolutely  nowhere.  The  prodigal  does 
nothing,  can  do  nothing,  urges  no  plea  grounded  on 
anything  in  himself,  or  done,  or  merited  by  another ; 
he  only  feels  the  baseness,  and  the  folly  of  his  course, 
and  turns  his  eye  homewards  and  says,  "  I  will  arise 
and  go  to  my  father. "i  The  old  man,  grieved  and 
crushed,  had  waited  long,  and  long  in  vain,  but  he 
waited  still,  and  was  only  eager  to  welcome  the  lost 
one  home,  and  to  love  him  as  tenderly  as  when  the 
child  sat  on  his  knee  or  played  at  his  feet.  At  last, 
when  he  caught  sight  of  his  son,  in  a  moment  all 
the  father  stirred  within  him,  and  he  ran  and  fell 
on  the  prodigal's  neck  and  kissed  him.  Such  is  the 
tale.  But  there  is  a  divine  reality  answering  to  it 
more  marvellously  touching.  Our  Father  in  heaven 
waits  and  longs  for  the  return  of  his  lost  children. 
The  one  only  thing  He  asks,  is  our  return.      His 

^  Luke  XV.  18. 


398       SACEIFICIAL  TERMS  AND   ALLUSIONS,    ETC. 

supreme  joy  is  our  return :  "  This  my  son  was  dead 
and  is  alive  again,  was  lost  and  is  found."  "  There 
is  joy  in  heaven  among  the  angels  of  God,  over  one 
sinner  that  repentetli,"  that  changeth  his  mind,  re- 
tm-neth  to  God.  This  may  not  be  a  gospel  accord- 
ing to  human  creeds,  but  it  is  certainly  the  gospel 
according  to  Christ  our  Lord  and  Master. 


CHAPTEK  XL 

,    ORIGIN   AND   GROWTH    OF   THE   DOCTRINE    OF 
SATISFACTION. 

Section  First. — From  the  Apostolic  Age  to  that  of  Anselm. 
Section  Second. — From  the  Age  of  Anselm  to  the  Present 
Time. 


SECTION  riEST — FROM  THE  APOSTOLIC  AGE  TO  THAT 
OF  ANSELM. 

Foundation  in  Human  Nature — Ignorance  and  Fears — Early  Chris- 
tian Writings — Repeat  Language  of  New  Testament — No  Inde- 
pendent Statement — Proof  Passages — Dr  Shedd's  Admissions 
— First  Idea,  Satisfaction  to  Satan — Irenseus — Origen — Abuse 
of  Figures,  the  Original  Root  of  Error — First  Explicit  State- 
ment— Athanasius — Augustin — Anselm.  ^ 

THE  idea  of  satisfaction  to  divine  justice  unques- 
tionably has  its  root  in  human  nature,  but  it  is 
in  the  ignorance,  the  false  views  and  the  false  fears  of 
human  nature.  That  idea  could  never  have  been 
originated,  or  if  originated,  could  never  have  been  so 
universally  and  thoroughly  adopted  had  there  not 
been  first  of  all  some  deep  common  ground  for  it  in 
ihe  soul  itself.     The  universal  sense  of  sin  is  obviously 

^  See  Shedd's  "  History  of  Christian  Doctrine,"  Clark,  Edinburgh, 
1865;  "  Lehrbuch  der  Dogmen  Geschichte,"  Hagenbtcch,  Leipsic, 
1857  ;  "  Die  Christliche  Lehre  von  der  Versohnung,"  Baur,  Tubin- 
gen, 1838;  and  "Christian' Literature  and  Doctrine,"  Donaldson, 
London,  1864;  a  work  which,  if  succeeding  volumes  maintain  the 
same  high  character  as  the  first,  will  be  no  common  treasure  to 
many  besides  theologians. 


402  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OF 

the  chief  element,  lying  at  the  very  base  of  the  notion^ 
The  fancy  that  eternal  like  human  justice  may  be 
defrauded,  and  must  receive  its  full  satisfaction  by 
one  means  or  other,  forms  an  additional  element. 
There  is  besides  the  idea,  that  God  is  subject  as  men 
are  to  the  passion  of  anger,  and  last  of  all  there  is 
the  thought,  that  if  God's  anger  is  to  be  appeased 
and  His  justice  satisfied,  it  must  be  in  some  such 
way  as  human  passion  is  quieted  and  gratified, 
namely,  by  punishment — the  more  effective  in  pro- 
portion as  it  is  severe.  It  is  singularly  seldom  that 
any  phrases,  at  all  suggestive  of  this  strictly  Pagan 
idea,  or  which  could  even  harmonise  with  it,  are  to 
be  found  in  the  New  Testament.  The  following  pas- 
sages stand  all  but  alone: — "We  are  saved  from 
wrath  through  him."  i  "  Jesus  who  delivered  us 
from  the  wrath  to  come.'^  2  "  (^od  hath  not  appointed 
us  to  wrath,  but  to  obtain  salvation  by  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ."^  "Thou  treasurest  up  unto  thyself 
wrath  against  the  day  of  wrath,  and  revelation  of  the 
righteous  judgment  of  God."  ^  And  these  passages 
refer  to  a  literal  fact  of  the  most  solemn  import. 
The  penalty  which  sin  insures,  and  insures  necessarily, 
is  a  standing  proof  of  the  abhorrence  with  which  God 
regards  it,  and  that  penalty,  if  sin  abide  in  the  nature, 
is  not  limited  to  the  present  existence,  but  certainly 

1  Rom.  V.  9.  2  1  Thess.  i.  10. 

3  1  Thess.  V.  9.  *  Rom.  ii.  5. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   SATISFACTION.  403 

extends  to  the  life  beyond  the  grave.  There  is  wrath 
to  come,  and  on  one  side,  the  salvation  which  is 
through  Christ,  is  deliverance  from  the  wrath  to 
come.  We  need  to  know  it,  and  to  feel  deeply  all  the 
awakening  force  of  the  fact. 

But  the  constant,  the  pervading  representations 
of  the  New  Testament  are  quite  of  another  character. 
The  writers  dwell  on  the  love  of  God  in  the  death  of 
Christ,  and  nothing  else.'  "  Hereby  perceive  we  the 
love  of  God,  because  he  laid  down  his  life  for  us.''  i 
"  Herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that  He 
loved  us,  and  sent  His  Son  to  be  the  propitiation  for 
our  sins." 2  "Behold,  what  manner  of  love  the 
Father  hath  bestowed  upon  us,  that  we  should  be 
called  the  sons  of  God."  ^  "  We  love  him  because 
he  first  loved  us."  *  "  Herein  God  commendeth  His 
love  toward  us,  in  that  while  we  were  yet  sinners, 
Christ  died  for  us."  ^  "  God  so  loved  the  world,  that 
He  gave  His  only-begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  be- 
lieveth  on  him  should  not  perish,  but  have  everlast- 
ing life."  6  What  we  learn  from  the  New  Testa- 
ment with  very  unusual  distinctness  is  this,  that 
God's  love  to  men,  and  His  holy  purpose  to  destroy 
evil  within  them,  were  such  that  He  incarnated 
Himself  in  the  holy  Saviour,  and  that  the  Incarnate, 
in  perfect  harmony  with  the  divine  thought,  was  ready 

1  John  iii.  16.     ^1  John  iv.  10.     ^1  John  iii.  1. 
*  1  John  iv.  19.    ^  Kom.  v.  8.       'John  iii.  16. 


404  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OP 

to  do  and  to  endure  anything  and  everything  in- 
volved in  his  earthly  mission,  in  order  to  instruct, 
convince,  subdue,  and  conquer  the  obdurate  heart  of 
man.     "  He  loved  us  and  gave  himself  for  us." 

Such  was  the  divine  method.  But  the  darkened, 
guilty,  and  terror-stricken  mind  longs  for  something 
more  definite,  more  exact,  more  judicially,  commer- 
cially final,  something  more  like  the  satisfaction 
which  an  angry  and  outraged  fellow-creature  would 
demand.  This  is  human  nature,  but  it  is  human 
nature  imagining  God  to  be  like  itself,  and  only 
capable  of  being  influenced  as  itself  is  ipfluenced ;  it 
is  human  nature  in  its  blindness,  in  its  dishonouring 
and  low  conceptions  of  the  Most  High,  and  in  its 
degrading  fears.  And  this,  it  is  quite  conceivable, 
though  unsupported  by  any  ascertained  facts,  might, 
more  or  less,  diffuse  itself,  during  the  course  of  the 
Mosaic  economy.  And  it  is  at  least  quite  as  much 
within  the  range  of  probability  and  quite  as  natural, 
that  after  the  death  of  Christ,  and  when  the  language 
and  the  symbols  of  Judaism  were  applied  to  the 
cross,  there  might  be  a  latent  tendency  from  the  first 
among  the  Pagan  and  even  the  Jewish  converts,  to 
adulterate  the  simplicity  and  the  pure  graciousness 
and  love  of  the  gospel.  It  had  been  nothing  wonder- 
ful, but  only  in  accordance  with  very  common  experi- 
ence, if  almost  in  the  life-time  of  the  apostles,  or 
very  soon  after  their  death,  the  infection  of  Pagan 


THE   DOCTKINE    OF    SATISFACTION.  405 

tliouglit  and  Pagan  feeling  had  begun  to  corrupt  the 
divine  redemption.  We  can  only  marvel  that  it  did 
not,  and  that  it  took  several  centuries  before  the  cor- 
ruption at  all  established  itself. 

The  early  Christian  writings  following  those  of  the 
New  Testament,  up  to  about  the  middle  of  the  third 
century,  are  comparatively  few.  The  shepherd  of 
HermaSji  the  epistles  of  Clemens  Komanus,!  of  Bar- 
nabas,^  of  Polycarp,!  and  of  Ignatius,^  the  five  books  of 
Irena3us,2  the  epistle  to  Diognetus,^  and  the  pieces  of 
Athenagoras,4  Theophilus,^  Justin  Martyr ,6  Tatian,7 
Tertullian,8  and  Minucius  Felix,^  make  up  nearly  all 
the  extant  Christian  literature,  within  the  period  in- 
dicated. It  is  beyond  our  sphere  to  pronounce  on 
either  the  correct  date  of  the  writings,  or  their  true 
authorship.  Both  are,  in  several  instances,  matters 
of  uncertainty,  and  cannot  be  determined  here.  Not 
rigid  chronology,  but  pertinence  to  our  subject,  guides 
the  arrangement  of  the  quotations  introduced. 

The  testimony  of  those  who  immediately  followed 
the  apostles  of  our  Lord,  and  had  received  the  Chris- 

^  Patrum  Apostolicorum  Opera  :  Dressel,  Leipsic,  1857. 

2  S.  S.  Irenaei,  libri  quinque :  Harvey,  Carabridge,  1857. 

3  Der  Brief  an  Dognet :  Hollenberg,  1853. 

^  Corpus  Apologetarum  Christianorum  :  Otto,  Jena,  1857. 
^  Theopbili,  Libri  tres  :  Humphrey,  Cambridge,  1852. 

6  S.  Justin,  Opera:  Otto,  Jena,  1842-3. 

7  Tatian  :  Otto,  1852. 

8  Patrologiae  Cursus  Completus :  Migne,  Paris,  1844. 
*  Minucius  Felix:  Holden,  Cambridge,  1853. 


406  ORIGIN    AND    GROWTH    OF 

tian  doctrine  from  their  lips,  and  again  the  testi- 
mony of  their  direct  successors  for  a  hundred  years 
onward,  would  be  invaluable,  could  it  be  taken  simply 
as  it  is,  and  with  perfect  impartiality  and  simplicity. 
It  is  vain  to  imagine  this  possible,  for  even  the  most 
upright  could  not,  with  their  utmost  efforts,  divest 
themselves  of  some  pre-judgment,  prejudice,  or  bias 
on  one  side  or  other.  But  thus  far  all  are  agreed, 
that  the  references  to  what  is  now  understood  as  the 
gospel,^  by  early  Christian  writers,  are  surprisingly 
few,  and  all  but  always  merely  in  the  words  of  the 
New  Testament,  without  comment  of  any  kind.  So 
near  to  the  cross  as  they  were,  with  a  perishing 
world  (as  we  speak)  around  them,  and  with  a  new^ 
and  precious  experience  which  had  entirely  changed 
their  Jewish  or  Pagan  life,  we  should  have  expected 
something  verj  different,  if  the  now  accepted  views 
of  Christ's  death  had  been  true.  But  it  is  indisput- 
able, that  they  rarely  touch  what  our  modern  theo- 
logy pronounces  to  be  the  very  core  of  saving  truth. 

Perhaps  the  most  pious  and  spiritual  of  the  pri- 
mitive Christian  remains,  and  the  most  apostolic  in 
phraseology  and  in  form,  are  the  epistles  of  Clemens 
Komanus,  of  Barnabas,  of  Polycarp,  and  of  Ignatius. 
The  first  epistle  of  Clemens  especially  reads,  in  some 
portions,  like  an  extract  from  the  New  Testament, 
but  with  this  exception,  not  excluding  even  Ignatius, 

^  Meaning  chiefly  the  doctrine  of  satisfaction  to  justice. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   SATISFACTION.  407 

there  is  often  a  sense  of  feebleness,  almost  of  insipi- 
dity, created  in  the  reading  of  these  letters,  which  it 
is  difficult  to  resist.  The  letter  of  Clemens  to  the 
Corinthian  Church  is  an  exception,  and  is  full  of 
wise  and  holy  counsels,  of  warnings  against  pride  and 
vain-glory  and  the  spirit  of  emulation,  and  of  lamen- 
tations over  the  miserable  schism  which  was  tearing 
them  in  pieces.  In  order  to  crush  out  their  bitter 
jealousies  and  heart-burnings  one  against  another, 
and  to  create  a  loving  mutual  forbearance,  and  a 
generous  yielding  to  each  other's  wishes  and  views, 
he  appeals  to  the  Divine  pattern  of  love  and  of  pure 
self-sacrifice.  *'  Without  love,  nothing  is  well- pleas- 
ing to  God Through  the  love  which  he  bore 

to  us,  Christ  our  Lord  gave  his  blood  for  us,  by  the 
will  of  God,  and  his  flesh  for  our  flesh,  and  his  soul 
for  our  souls,"! — in  which  passage  let  those  who  can, 
imagine  expiation  of  sin  or  satisfaction  to  justice, 
but  assuredly  it  is  in  them,  not  in  it.  The  self- 
sacrifice  of  pure  love  is  there,  nothing  else.  Again 
we  read,  "  Let  us  steadfastly  look  to  the  blood  of 
Christ  and  see  how  precious  it  is  to  God  his  Father, 
because  being  shed  for  our  salvation,  it  bore  [pain- 
fully yielded]  to  the  whole  world  the  favour  of  change 

^  At'xa  dydTTTjs  oiidh  ivdpearov  r^J  OeQ  .  .  .  5tct  ttj'^  dydTrrju  ijv  icrx'^v 
Trpbs  i]fids  rb  atfia  airov  iduKcv  iirkp  ijfiwp  'Irja-ovs  Xpicrrbs  6  Kijpios 
Tjfiuv,  ev  deX-qfJiaTi  Qeov,  Kal  ttjv  cdpna  virkp  ttjs  aapKbs  tj/xQv,  Kal  tijv 
\}^vxi]v  vTrkp  tQiv  rpvxCov  rifxCov. — Patrum  Apostolicorum  Opera,  Leipsic, 
1857;  Clem.,  i.c.  46. 


408  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OF 

of  mind.  Let  us  go  back  to  all  past  generations  and 
learn  that,  from  age  to  age,  the  Lord  hath  afforded 
place  for  change  of  mind  to  those  who  wished  to 
turn  to  Him."  l  One  other  quotation  we  introduce, 
and  expressly  for  the  purpose  of  showing  how  little 
dependence  ought  to  be  placed  on  the  wisest  and 
best  of  these  early  Christian  writers,  especially  in 
matters  of  interpretation  and  of  criticism.  This 
same  Clemens,  probably  the  companion  and  disciple 
of  Paul,  gives  his  name  to  a  far-fetched  and  con- 
temptible conceit.  It  relates  to  Kaliab  the  harlot : — 
"  Moreover,  they  gave  to  her  a  sign  that  she  should 
hang  out  of  her  house  a  scarlet  thread,  showing 
thereby  that  by  the  blood  of  the  Lord  there  should 
be  redemption  to  all  who  believe  and  ho-pe  in  God.''^ 
Strange  to  say,  even  this  is  surpassed  in  fancifulness 
and  in  absurdity,  by  a  later  and  a  deservedly-ad- 
mired father.  Irenaeus  says,  "  So  also  the  harlot 
Kahab,  while  condemning  herself  as  a  Gentile,  guilty 
of  all  kinds  of  sin,  did  yet  receive  the  three  spies 

^  ' A.T€vl(j03}iev  eh  rb  atfia  rod  XpiaroO,  /cat  tdicfiev,  ws  'icrriv  ri/unov  t(3 
0ey,  iraTpi  avrov  on  dia  ttjv  TjfieT^pav  acorrjpiav  eKxvQ^v  iravrl  tc^ 
KbafiQi  fieravoias  x^P'-^  VTyveyKCP.  ' ApiXOcofiev  els  ras  yei/eas  irdaas  kuI 
KaTafMddui/xep  6ti  iv  yevea  Kalyeveq.  pLeravoias  tottov  ^duKev'o  Aeairdrris 
Toh  ^Qv\op.evoi.s  iTn(rTpa(p7]uai  iir  avrbv.  —  Patrum  Apostolicorum 
Opera,  Leipsic,  1857  ;  Clem.,  i.  c.  7. 

^  Kal  TrpocredivTO  avrg  dovvai  crip.e'LOV  Sttws  Kpepidari  ck  tov  oikov 
aiTTJs  k6kklvov  irpbhrfKov  Troiovvres  on  Slcl  tov  aip-aTos  tov  Kvpiou 
X^rpuais  ^aTai  Tract  rots  iriGTevov  (Xlv  Kal  ^\irl^ov<nv  iirl  tov  Qeou. — 
Idem.,  c.  7. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   SATISFACTION.  409 

who  were  searching  the  land,  and  hid  them  in  her 
house, — to  wit,  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost."  i-  It  would  not  be  easy  to  excel  this  state- 
ment in  extravagance  or  impiety. 

The  letters  ascribed  to  Barnabas,  the  companion 
of  Paul,  and  to  Polycarp,  the  disciple  of  John,  pious 
in  sentiment  and  in  spirit,  would  attract,  and  are 
worthy  of  little  consideration,  but  for  the  names 
which  they  bear.  Even  the  seven  epistles  ascribed 
to  Ignatius,  the  fellow-disciple  of  Polycarp,  though 
often  spiritual  and  fervid,  and,  like  Clement,  apostolical 
in  language  and  in  form,  possess  no  solid  value,  and 
are  almost  devoid  of  interest,  except  for  their  vener- 
able antiquity,  and  as  the  utterance  of  warm  affec- 
tion and  of  earnest  piety.  In  many  parts,  besides, 
they  are  painfully  inflated,  fulsomely  complimentary 
to  the  churches  and  their  bishops,  even  offensively 
self-glorifying,  and  above  all,  poisoned  with  a  strange 
ambition,  expressing  very  often  a  morbid  and  proud 
desire  on  the  part  of  this  saint  to  suffer  martyrdom, 
which  he  did  ere  long,  with  unshaken  faith  and  a 
true  heroism. 

Of  the  shepherd  of  Hermas,  the  most  singularly 

^  Sic  autera  et  Rahab  fornica,  semetipsam  quidem  condemnans, 
quoniam  esset  gentilis,  omnium  peccatorum  rea,  suscepit  autem 
tres  speculatores,  qui  speculabantur  universam  terram  et  apud  se 
abscondit,  Patrem,  scilicet  et  Filium  cum  Spiritu  Sancto. — S.  Ire- 
Baei,  libros  quinque,  edidit  W.  W.  Harney,  S.  T.  B.,  Cambridge, 
1857,  ii.  224. 


410  ORIGIN   AND   GROWTH   OF 

opposite  judgments  have  been  pronounced.  To  many 
it  seems  poor  and  feeble  from  beginning  to  end,  often 
very  questionable  in  taste,  even  in  moral  taste,  and 
with  hardly  a  redeeming  quality.  Certainly  the 
world  would  not  have  lost  much  had  the  visions,  and 
commands,  and  similitudes  of  Hermas  never  been 
heard  of. 

In  the  epistle  to  Diognetus,  ascribed  to  Justin 
Martyr,  but  whose  authorship  and  exact  age  are 
doubtful,  though  its  very  early  date  is  not  disputed, 
we  meet  with  a  passage,  the  very  strongest  in  ex- 
pression and  in  tone  of  any  to  be  found  in  the  post- 
apostolic  writings.  "  But  when  the  measure  of  our 
unrighteousness  was  filled  up,  and  it  had  been  fully 
shown  that  punishment  and  death  awaited  us  as  its 
reward,  and  the  time  had  come  which  God  had  fore- 
ordained to  show  forth  His  own  goodness  and  power, 
of  what  surpassing  benevolence  was  the  love  of  God 
to  man !  He  did  not  hate  us  or  cast  us  off,  or  re- 
member the  evil  against  us.  But  He  bore  long  with 
us,  and  gave  up  His  own  Son  as  a  ransom  for  us,  the 
holy  for  transgressors,  him  who  was  without  evil  for 
sinners,  the  just  for  the  unjust,  the  imperishable  for 
perishing  man,  the  immortal  for  mortals.  For  what 
else  but  his  righteousness  could  have  been  a  covering 
for  our  sins  ?  By  whom  could  we,  sinners  and  un- 
godly, have  been  justified,  but  by  the  Son  of  God 
alone  ?     Oh,  the  sweet  exchange !  oh,  the  unsearuh- 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF    SATISFACTION.  411 

able  dispensation !  oh,  the  unlooked-for  benefits ! 
To  cover  the  transgressions  of  many  through  one 
righteous  man,  and  by  the  righteousness  of  one  to 
justify  many  sinners  I"^  The  rhetorical,  almost 
rhapsodical,  character  of  these  sentences  is  obvious. 
The  author  is  writing  manifestly  from  a  glowing 
and  grateful  heart,  and  from  a  kindled  and  excited 
imagination.  Warm  with  the  ravishing  thought  of 
Divine  love,  he  repeats,  and  repeats,  and  still  repeats 
one  idea.  Laying  hold  of  a  sacred  figure,  he  does 
what  all  do  in  dealing  with  figures,  he  extends  and 
expands  it,  and  conveys  by  this  means  a  true  im- 
pression of  his  feelings,  but  in  words  which,  if  rigidly 
taken,  would  suggest  what  was  not  true  in  his 
thoughts. 

From  the  remaining  early  Christian  writers,  we 
have  addresses  of  various  kinds,  to  individuals,  to 

^  'Ettci  5^  ireirX-Zipuro  fiiv  i)  rjixeripa  ddiKia  Kal  reXetcos  ireipavipuTO 
6'Tt  6  /MLcrdbs  avTTJs  KdXaais  Kal  ddvaros  TrpoaedoKdro,  ^Xde  8^  6  Kuipbs  8p 
Qebs  irpoedero  Xonrbu  (pavepQcrat  t7]v  eavroO  x/)?7(rT6T77Ta  /cat  dijva/xiv — ws 
T^s  virep^aXXo^arjs  (ptXavdpuTrias  (ila  aydirrj  rod  Qeov — ovk  i/JLiarjaev 
■}]fias  6v5e  dirwaaro  6v5k  i/JLvaaiKaKijcrev  dXXd  i/j,aKpod6fX7]aev  dvrbs  rbv 
X^LOv  vibv  diredoTO  XOrpov  virep  rjixdv  rbv  dyiov  virkp  tGjv  dv6fxojv,  rbv 
&KaKov  virkp  tCjv  KaKdv  rbv  SiKatov  virkp  rdv  ddcKCov,  rbv  dcpOaprbu 
virkp  tQ)v  (pdaprQu  rbv  dddvarbv  virkp  rQv  OvijrQv.  Tt  yap  dXXo  rds 
afxaprias  TjfxQv  rjduvrjdr]  KaXv\}/aL  ^  iKcivov  dLKatoaiJvr]  iv  rlvi  diKaiodTJvai. 
dvvarbv  roi>s  dvofiovs  7]/xds  Kal  dffe^elt  i}  iv  fxbvcp  t<^  vi(^  rov  Qeov. 
a  rrjs  yXvKeias  dvraXXayrjs,  &  t^s  dve^ixvlacrrov  dTjjxiovpyias,  &  rdv 
dirpoaSoKrjrCov  ivepyeaiuv.  "Ii'a  dvofiia  [xkv  iroXXQv  ivdiKatcp  evl  Kpv^rj, 
diKaioavvT]  8k  evbs,  iroXXoi/s  dv6fjt.ovs  Si/caiwcr?;. — Der  Brief  an  Disquet- 
Hollenberg,  Berlin,  1853;  c.  9.,  s.  17. 


412  ORIGIN   AND   GROWTH   OP 

churches,  and  to  emperors  or  governors,  apologies 
for  Christianity,  defences  of  Christians,  short  trea- 
tises or  essays,  some  of  them  very  effective,  but 
seldom  or  never  accompanied  with  anything  which 
could  now  be  called  the  gospel  The  address  of 
Tatian  l  to  the  men  of  Greece,  explaining  his  con- 
version to  Christianity,  is  an  exposition  of  the  folly 
of  idolatry,  of  the  character  of  the  Pagan  gods,  and 
of  the  absurdity  of  the  doctrine  of  fate,  but  no  gos- 
pel. Athenagoras  ^  has  an  essay  on  the  resurrection 
of  the  dead  body,  which  would  compare  not  unfavour- 
ably with  many  a  modern  treatise  on  the  same  sub- 
ject, but  no  gospel.  Theophilus  3  of  Antioch  writes  at 
great  length  to  Autolycus,  a  Pagan,  argues  ably  for  the 
being  of  one  God  over  all,  exposes  the  folly  of  poly- 
theism and  idolatry,  discourses  loftily  of  the  nature 
and  attributes  of  the  One  God,  enters  largely  into 
questions  of  antiquity  and  chronology,  and  then  pre- 
sents a  compendium  of  the  Mosaic  account  of  the 
creation,  the  deluge,  and  the  early  history  of  the 
world;  but  there  is  no  gospel.     Athenagoras,*  ad- 

»  Oratio  ad  Graecos:  I.  C.  T.  Otto,  Jena,  1852. 

2  Corpus  Apol,  Christian  :  I.  C.  T.  Otto,  Jena,  1857. 

3  Theophili,  libri  tres  :  G.  G.  Humphrey,  S.  T.  B.,  Cambridge, 
1853. 

■*  "0  Tov  5^  rod  iravrbs  Arjfxiovpybs  Kal  irarTjp  ov  de^rai  aifxaros  ov5^ 
Kviaar]$  ovd^  ttjs  airo  tCov  d.vdC}v  Kal  dv/jnajxaTuv  euwSt'as*  .  .  .  'AWd 
Bvcla  avTip  fieyiarr)  &v  yivdjaKU/xef  ,  -  .  Srav  ^xoires  tou  Arj/niovpybu 
Oeov  avv^xovra  Kal  iiroineijoPTa  iTncmfjfjLrj  Kal  t^x^V  i^^^  V^  ^7^'  '^^^ 
irdPTa  kiraiptjoixev  baias  x^^pas  aury  Trotas  eVi  Xfidav  iKaTbfi^Tjs  ^x^t. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF    SATISFACTION.  413 

dressing  "  Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus  and  Lucius 
Aurelius  Commodus,  the  conquerors  of  Armenia, 
and,  what  is  greatest  of  all,  philosophers,"  executes 
an  elaborate  defence  of  the  Christians,  from  the 
principal  charges  which  were  then  brought  against 
them.  One  of  these  charges  was  to  this  effect,  that 
the  followers  of  Jesus  did  not,  like  all  other  nations 
of  the  then  known  world,  offer  sacrifice,  as  an  act 
of  worship.  If  ever  there  was  a  fair  opportunity, 
almost  a  clear  necessity,  it  was  now,  for  proclaiming 
the  expiation  of  sin,  (had  it  been  true,)  by  the  one 
sacrifice  of  Christ  on  the  cross.  But  no  such  idea  is 
once  expressed  or  hinted  at.  Something  widely  dif- 
ferent is  advanced,  and  that  which  is  now  supposed 
to  be  the  essence  of  Christian  truth  is  thoroughly 
ignored.  "  The  Father  and  Creator  of  the  universe 
wants  not  blood  nor  savour  [of  victims,]  nor  sweet 

scent  from  flowers  and  from  incimse But  the 

best  sacrifice  to  Him  is  that  we  should  acknowledge 

Him When,  having  before  our  minds  God, 

the  Creator,  sustaining  and  inspecting  all  things,  in 
the  knowledge  and  skill  with  which  He  rules  them, 
we  lift  up  holy  hands  to  Him,  what  need  is  there  of 
other  hecatombs?     Why  must  we  offer  holocausts, 

Ti  de  fioi  oKoKavTibaecou  dv /XT]  Setrat  6  Qeos'  'Kalroi.  irpocrcpipeLV  deov 
duai/xaKTOV  dvalav  Kal  r-qu  XoyiKTjv  irpoab^yeiv  Xarpeiav.  —  Corpus 
Apologetarum  Cbristianorum,  I.  C.  T.  Otto,  Jena,  1857,  pp. 
59,  60. 


414  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OP 

since  God  wants  them  not  ?  We  must  offer  an  un- 
bloody sacrifice,  and  bring  to  Him  a  reasonable  ser- 
vice." Minucius  Felix,  a  much  later  writer  than  any 
yet  named,  a  Koman  lawyer,  is  the  author  of  an 
imaginary  dialogue  between  Octavius  a  Christian, 
and  Cecilius  a  Pagan.  The  Pagan  fairly  represents 
the  philosophical  and  the  popular  arguments  against 
Christianity,  deals  with  some  of  the  special  Christian 
tenets,  arraigns  the  ignorance  and  presumption  of 
Christians,  and  reprobates  the  flagitious  crimes  of 
which  they  were  commonly  accused.  Octavius  re- 
pels the  accusation,  however  common,  and  shows  its 
improbability  and  falsehood,  explains  some  of  the 
Christian  tenets,  but  chiefly  insists — with  the  aid  of 
arguments  drawn  from  the  old  philosophy  itself — on 
the  unity  of  God  and  the  doctrine  of  providence. 
The  work  has  some  prominent  faults,  an  occasional 
puerility  and  triviality,  as  in  its  reference  to  the  sign 
of  the  cross,  to  the  agency  of  demons,  and  to  the  gods 
of  the  heathen ;  but  as  a  whole,  it  is  one  of  the  least 
objectionable  and  most  excellent  of  the  ancient  writ- 
ings. It  is  simple  and  beautiful  in  conception,  inge- 
nious, subtle,  and  cogent  in  argument,  and  most 
graceful  and  elegant  in  execution.  But  there  is  no 
gospel. 

Justin  Martyr  holds  a  most  honourable  place  in 
the  list  of  primitive  apologists.  His  writings,  ex- 
cluding several  which  are   supposed  by  the  best 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   SATISFACTION.  415 

authorities  to  be  spurious,  are  mucli  more  extended, 
if  we  exce|)t  TertuUian,  tlian  those  of  any  of  the  post 
apostolic  fathers,  and  more  valuable  as  the  utterance 
of  primitive  thought  and  piety.  One  is  startled,  even 
in  them,  by  puerile  and  absurd  notions,  which,  how- 
ever, were  shared,  more  or  less,  by  most  of  the  marked 
names  of  that  age  which  have  come  down  to  us. 
Justin  shocks  modern  ideas  by  his  opinions  respect- 
ing evil  spirits,  their  power  over  men,  and  men's 
power  over  them,  respecting  the  virtue  of  the  sign  of 
the  cross,  respecting  the  transmigration  of  human 
souls,  and  respecting  baptism,  in  which  last,  how- 
ever, he  is  far  surpassed  by  TertuUian  in  mystical 
and  misleading  language.  But,  as  a  whole,  Justin's 
writings  are  intrinsically  valuable,  pervaded  by  a 
deep  spirit  of  piety,  and  manifestly  drawn  forth  out 
of  a  genuine  and  profound  religious  experience.  His 
two  apologues  contrast  favourably  with  that  of  Ter- 
tuUian, as  forcible  and  as  just,  but  far  more  temper- 
ate and  Christian  in  spirit.  For  our  purpose,  it  is 
enough  to  say,  that — except  quotations  from  Scrip- 
ture, and  chiefly  from  the  53d  chapter  of  Isaiah — 
there  is  nothing  in  them  bearing  on  satisfaction  to 
justice — certainly  no  independent  statement,  or  even 
allusion  to  the  idea.  We  have  a  most  interesting 
detail  of  the  forms  of  early  Christian  worship — the 
reading,  the  discourse,  the  prayers,  the  eucharist  of 
the  bread  and  of  the  cup,  the  duty  of  the  deacons  to 


416  ORIGIN    AND    GROWTH    OP 

reserve  a  portion  of  tlie  sacred  feast  for  those  who 
were  absent,  the  collection  for  the  widows,  the  father- 
less, and  the  poor.  But  even  here,  though  it  would 
have  been  so  natural,  (had  it  been  true,)  and  so 
necessary  and  fitting,  when  addressing  a  heathen 
emperor  and  a  heathen  senate,  not  a  hint  escapes 
that  the  Christian  assembly,  which  he  had  described, 
believed  in  the  expiation  of  human  sin  by  the  death 
of  Christ. 

The  longest  and  ablest  of-  Justin's  works  is  his 
imaginary  dialogue  with  Trypho  a  Jew.  It  is  an 
extended  argument,  in  which  the  once-heathen  philo- 
sopher proves  to  the  Jew  the  Messiahship  and  the 
Divinity  of  Jesus  Christ ;  and,  as  was  to  be  expected, 
it  abounds  with  quotations  from  the  Old  Testament, 
and  especially  from  the  book  of  Isaiah.  There  is, 
among  other  things,  a  long  and  lucid  explanation  of 
the  sufferings  of  Christ  as  real,  in  opposition  to  the 
Docetae,  and  as  perfectly  compatible  with  his  essen- 
tial divinity.  But  even  here  not  a  hint  is  given  that 
these  sufferings  were  expiatory  and  judicial.  The 
following  quotations,  the  strongest  in  expression 
which  the  w^ork  contains,  must  suffice  to  convey  as 
faithful  and  complete  an  impression,  as  can  be  ga- 
thered, of  the  tone  and  the  form  of  the  convictions 
of  this  accomplished  and  devout  Christian  saint : — 
"  Wherefore,  if  they  repent,  all  who  wish  can  obtain 
mercy  from  God,  and  the  Scripture  pronounces  them 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   SATISFACTION.  417 

blessed,  saying,  Blessed  is  the  man  to  whom  the  Lord 
will  not  impute  sin, — that  is,  that  having  repented 
of  his  sins,  he  may  obtain  remission  of  them  from 
God,  but  not  as  you,  and  some  others  who  resemble 
you  in  this  particular,  deceive  yourselves,  and  say 
that  even  if  they  be  sinners,  and  know  God,  the  Lord 
will  not  impute  sin  to  them."  ^  Trypho  having  asked 
if  unbelieving  Jews,  who  directed  their  lives  by  the 
law  of  Moses,  would  be  saved,  Justin  answers,  that 
whatever  is  naturally  good,  holy,  and  just,  is  com- 
manded by  Moses ;  and  then  adds,  "  Since  they  who 
did  such  things  as  are  by  nature  universally  and 
eternally  good,  are  well  pleasing  to  God,  they,  through 
this  Christ  of  ours,  shall  be  saved  in  the  resurrec- 
tion, equally  with  their  righteous  forefathers,  Noah, 
Enoch,  Jacob,  and  others,  together  with  those  who 
acknowledge  Christ  as  the  Son  of  God."  2  Again, 
"  God  has,  beforehand,  declared  that  all  who,  through 
this  name,  make  those  sacrifices  which  Jesus,  who 

^  (icrre  iav  fierapo'^crucri,  Trdures  ^ovKdfievoi  rvx'^'i-v  tov  irapa  rod 
Qeov  eX^os  dvvaprai,  koX  //.aKaptovs  avroi/s  6  Xoyos  irpokiyeL  eLirdov,  Ma- 
KapLos  y  ou  fiT)  XoyiarjTai  K^pios  a/Maprlav.  ToOto  di  iarcv  us  fMera- 
voriaas  irrl  rois  rifiapTTj/xacrt  rdv  TjfiapTrj/jidTwv  iraph  rod  Qeov  \d^rj 
dcpecriv  aXX'  01;%  ws  vfjiels  dTrarare  eauroCs  Kal  fiXXot  rivh  v/xiv  Sfxoiot. 
Karai,  toOto,  ot  X^yovaiv  8ti  nhv  afxapruXol  &(ri  Qebv  d^  yipdicrKOvaiv,  6v 
fiT]  XoylarjTai.  ai/rois  Kvpios  afxaprLav.  —  Cap.  141,  p.  460. 

2  'ETrel  ot  TO.  KadbXov  Kal  (pva-ei  kuI  aldovia  KaXa  kirolovv  evapecrroi 
elci  T($  0e<p  Kal  dla  tov  xpi^CTOv  To{rrov  iu  rrj  dvaardaei  6/xouos  rots  Trpo- 
yevo/xevoLi  dvTuv  diKalois,  Nwe.  '^vbx,  'Ia\'u)/3,  Kal  ei  tipcs  &XXol  yeyo- 
vaai,  aud-qaovTai  aiiv  roh  iinyvovai.  tov  xpi-CTbv  tovtop  tov  Qeov  vXov. 
— Ibid.,  c.  45,  p.  144. 

2b 


418  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OP 

is  the  Christ,  commanded, — ^that  is  to  say,  in  the 
eucharist  of  the  bread  and  of  the  cup" — certainly  no 
expiatory  sacrifice,  but  a  pure  act  of  loving  remem- 
brance, of  thanksgiving,  and  of  self  -  surrender — 
"  which  are  offered  in  every  part  of  the  world  by  us 
Christians,  are  well  pleasing  to  Him.  But  those 
sacrifices  which  are  offered  by  you,  and  through 
those  priests  of  yours.  He  wholly  rejects,  saying,  I 
will  not  accept  joxir  offerings  at  your  hands."  i 
Again,  "  That  prayers  and  thanksgivings,  offered 
up  by  the  worthy,  are  the  only  sacrifices  which  are 
perfect  and  acceptable  to  God,  is  what  I  myself  also 
affirm ;  for  these  alone  the  Christians  have  been 
taught  to  offer."  2  Again,  "  The  mystery  of  the 
lamb,  which  God  commanded  you  to  sacrifice  as  a 
passover,  was  a  type  of  Christ,  with  whose  blood, 
according  to  the  measure  of  their  faith  in  him,  they 
who  believe  anoint  their  houses,  —  that  is,  them- 
selves." ^    Again,  Justin  places  real  against  ritual 

^  Hduras  odv  ot  5la  rod  dvSfiaTos  roirov,  dvalas  &5  TapiduKcu  'IricroOs 
6  Xpicrds  ybecdai  tovt  iariv  iTrl  ry  evxapicrria  rod  aprov  kuI  toO 
iroriipLov,  rb.^  iu  iravrl  rSircp  ttjs  yrjs  yLVop.has  virb  twv  xP^a-riavuv, 
irpoka^div  6  Qebs  fiaprvpel  evap^arovs  iirdpxeiv  aurcp.  Tas  6^  V(p  v/itov 
Kal  8i  iK  elv<av  vficav  tQu  lepeuv  yivo/xivas,  iiravlerat  \iy(av,  rd?  dvaias 
iffiuv  oi  -irposSi^ofxai  iK  tup  xf'pwj'  v/xcav. — Ibid.,  c.  117,  p.  387. 

*  "On  fih  ovv  Kal  eir^al  Kal  e^x'^P'-^T^^'-  ^"""^  "^^^  d^lwv  yivSp-evai  riXeiai 
p.6vai.  Kal  eiiapearoi  dai  T(p  6e<f>  dvaiai  Kal  atrros  (prjfii.  Tavra  yhp 
(ibva  Kal  xpt'O'Tiavol  irapfKa^ov  iroielv. — Ibid.,  c.  117,  p.  388. 

^  T6  fivaTTjpiov  rod  irpo^aTov  6  t6  irdax'^  dijeiv  ivriTaXrai  8  9e6s 
Ti/TTos  ^p  Tov  XpicTTod  od  T(p  al'/iart  /caret  rbp  \6yov  ttjs  els  avrop  tIct- 


THE   DOCTEINE   OF   SATISFACTION.  419 

cleansing,  and  shows  that  nothing  but  thorough, 
personal  abandonment  of  evil  can  avail.  It  was 
not  surely  to  the  bath,  he  says,  that  Isaiah  sent  you, 
to  wash  away  sins ;  but,  he  adds,  "  as  one  would 
think,  there  was  of  old  that  very  washing  of  salva- 
tion which  is  for  those  who  repent,  and  who  are  no 
longer  purified  by  the  blood  of  goats  and  sheep,  or 
by  the  ashes  of  an  heifer,  hut  hy  faith^  through  the 
blood  and  death  of  Christ,  who  died  for  this  very 
purpose."  "•  Again,  "  Through  the  baptism  of  repent- 
ance, and  the  knowledge  of  God,  which,  as  Isaiah  says, 
was  instituted  for  the  sins  of  the  people,  we  have 
believed  and  know  that  the  same  baptism,  which 
is  alone  able  to  cleanse  penitents,  is  the  water  of 
life."  2 

Tertullian  is  one  of  the  most  voluminous  of  all 
the  early  Christian  writers,  and  the  least  satisfactory. 
With  no  little  argumentative  power,  philosophic  cul- 
ture, and  natural  eloquence,  he  is  intemperate  and 

rews  xP^ovrai  roi/s  otKovs  iavrup,  tovt  i(XTiP  iavroh,  ol  TriareiiovTes  els 
aMv.—Ibid.,  c.  40,  p.  130. 

^  'AWd  (is  ek6s  irdXat  tovto  iKecPO  rb  ffUT'^piov  \ovTphv  ^v  8  Ziire  rb 
Toh  fieTayiP(I}(TKOv<n  Kal  firjKiTi  difiaai  rpdycav  Kal  irpo^drcov  17,  ctttoScD 
5a/j,d\eus  Kadapi^ofiivoLs,  dWb.  iriarTeL  5la  rod  aifiaros  toO  Xpiarov  Kal 
ToO  davdrov  airrov  6s  dla  tovto  diridavev. — Ibid.,  c.  13,  p.  44. 

^  Atd  Tov  XovTpoO  o^v  TT]S  fieTavolas  Kal  ttjs  yvdiiaeus  tov  QeoO  6  vTrhp 
TTJs  dvofxias  tCov  Xauv  tov  Qeov  yivovev  &s  'Hcat'as  ^od  ijfMeis  eincTeTj- 
(xafiev  Kal  yvupi^o/iep,  8Tt  tovt  iKeivo  8  Tporjydpeve  t6  ^dirTiajxa,  rb 
p,bvQv  Kadaplaai  Toi/s  p-eTavorjaavTas  dvvap,evop  tovt6  iffTi  t6  (JSoj/)  ttjs 
^u)7]s.—Ibid.,  c.  14,  p.  48. 


420  OHIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OF 

unguarded,  and  is  wanting  in  that  pervading  spirit  of 
piety,  which  so  beautifully  distinguishes  Justin  Martyr. 
His  later  writings,  when  he  had  embraced  the  heresy 
of  Montanus,  and  his  polemical  pieces,  are  extrava- 
gant in  sentiment,  and  violent  in  spirit.  The  titles 
of  some  of  the  former  are  enough : — "  De  Yelandis 
Yirginibus,  de  Pudicitia,  de  Monogamia,  Exhortatio 
Castitatis,"  &c.  We  refer  here  solely  to  his  earlier 
and  better  productions,  the  "  Apologeticus  adversus 
Gentes,  ad  Martyres,  ad  Scapulam,  ad  Uxorem  II., 
de  Testimonio  Animas,  de  Spectaculis,  de  Idolatria,  de 
Oratione,  de  Baptismo,  de  Pcenitentia,  de  Patientia, 
de  Corona  Militis,"  and  "  De  Pr^escriptionibus  ad- 
versus Hereticos."  Throughout  these  writings,  it  is 
enough  to  say  that  no  express  statement  of  the  doc- 
trine of  satisfaction  can  be  found,  and  there  is  less  of 
Scriptural  phraseology  and  quotation,  than  in  any 
other  of  the  fathers.  In  the  "  Apologeticus,"  one  of 
TertuUian's  best  productions,  and  fullest  of  quotation 
from  the  Scriptures,  we  have  a  mystical  and  obscure 
exposition  of  the  Incarnation,  and  thereafter  of  the 
life  and  death,  and  resurrection  and  ascension  of 
Jesus,  but  not  a  word  or  hint,  even  here,  though  it 
lay  so  directly  in  his  way  (had  it  been  true)  of  satis- 
faction for  sin.  One  passage  only  from  the  writings 
of  TertuUian  we  extract,  as  furnishing  some  clue  to 
his  guiding  thoughts.  It  occurs  in  the  "  De  Oratione,'' 
a  commentary  on  our  Lord's  prayer.     On  the  petition 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF   SATISFACTION.  421 

for  forgiveness  of  sin,  Tertullian  says,i  "  Prayer  for 
forgiveness  is  confession,  for  he  that  asketh  forgive- 
ness confesseth  sin.  Thus,  also,  is  repentance  mani- 
fested, acceptable  to  God,  because  He  willeth  this 
rather  than  the  death  of  the  sinner.  But  a  debt  is  in 
the  Scriptures  a  figure  for  a  sin,  because  payment  is, 
in  like  manner,  by  just  sentence  due,  and  by  the  same 
demanded,  nor  can  it  evade  the  justice  of  the  demand, 
unless  the  demand  be  remitted,  as  the  Lord  forgave 
that  servant  the  debt.  For  the  example  of  the  whole 
parable  looketh  this  way.  For  whereas  the  same 
servant,  when  loosed  by  his  Lord,  doth  not  in  like 
manner  spare  his  own  debtor,  and  being  on  that 
account  brought  before  his  Lord,  is  delivered  to  the 
tormentor,  till  he  should  pay  the  uttermost  farthing, 
that  is,  the  very  least  sin,  so  with  this  agreeth  that 
we  also  profess  to  forgive  our  debtors." 

We  have  finished  our  condensed  account  of  the 
early  Christian  writings,  up  to  a  few  years  beyond 

^  Exomologesis  est  petitio  veniae,  quia  qui  petit  veniam,  delictum 
confitetur.  Sic  et  penitentia  demonstratur  acceptabilis  Deo,  quia 
vult  eum  quam  mortem  peccaturis.  Debitum  autem  in  scriptura, 
delicti  figura  est  quod  perinde  judicio  debeatur,  et  ab  eo  exigatur 
nee  evadet  justitiam  exactionis,  nisi  donetur  exactio,  sicut  illi  servo 
Dominus  debitum  remisit.  Hue  enim  spectat  exemplura  parabolae 
totius.  Nam  et  quod  idem  servus,  a  Domino  liberatus,  non  perinde 
parcit  debitors  suo,  ac  propterea  delatus,  penes  dominum,  torturi 
delegatur  ad  solvendum  novissimum  quadrantem,  id  est,  modicum 
usque  debitum,  eo  competit,  quod  remittere,  nos  quoque  profitemur 
debitoribus  nostris. — "  Patrologise  cursus  completus."  Migne,  Paris, 
1844.       I.  1162,  3. 


4:22  ORIGIN   AND   GROWTH   OF 

the  beginning  of  the  third  century.  Injustice  will 
certainly  be  done  to  them,  unless  it  be  understood 
that  most  of  them  make  use,  though  not  frequently,  of 
the  New  Testament  language  in  reference  to  the  death 
of  the  Eedeemer,  and  also  that  in  some  instances  they 
apply  passages  of  the  Old  Testament,  such  as  the  53d 
chapter  of  Isaiah  and  the  22d  Psalm,  to  that  death. 
But  with  this  exception,  and  an  occasional  expansion 
or  extension  of  a  scriptural  figure  or  image,  there  is 
nothing  to  indicate  the  doctrine  of  satisfaction  to 
Divine  justice  for  sin,  as  not  only  an  article  of  Chris- 
tian faith,  but  the  fundamental  and  essential  article. 
At  the  same  time,  it  is  fully  admitted  that  the  ulti- 
mate and  real  question,  after  all,  goes  back  to  the 
meaning  of  the  New  Testament  itself.  No  one  could 
fairly  dispute  that  if  the  doctrine  of  satisfaction  be 
there,  it  is  also  in  the  post-apostolic  writings.  But 
if  it  be  wanting  there,  as  we  have  sought  to  show 
that  it  is,  then  unquestionably  it  has  no  place  in 
them. 

It  must  here  be  remembered  how  much,  quite 
away  from  the  disputed  doctrine,  is  taught  by  those 
passages  in  the  New  Testament  which  refer  to  the 
cross,  to  human  salvation,  and  to  the  work  of  the 
Eedeemer.  From  these  passages,  as  has  been  al- 
ready made  out,  we  learn  most  assuredly  and  dis- 
tinctly :  1st,  That  the  death  and  the  entire  earthly 
course  of  Jesus  originated  in  love  to  men,  Grod's  love 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   SATISFACTION.  423 

to  men,  and  tliat  they  form  the  most  mysterious  ex- 
hibition of  perfectly  pure  and  unprompted  gracious- 
ness.  2d,  That  the  death  and  the  life  of  Jesus  were 
literally  for  sin,  on  account  of  sin,  and  nothing  but  sin, 
and  were  God's  last  and  best  means  of  taking  away  sin, 
and  rooting  it  out  of  the  heart  of  the  world.  3d,  That 
the  death  and  the  life  of  Jesus  were  truly  sacrificial 
— ^he  freely  sacrificing  himself  to  the  will  of  God  and 
to  the  good  of  men,  and  God  sacrificing  His  Incarnate 
Son,  in  order  to  conquer  the  obdurate  heart  of  man. 
And  4th,  That  the  death  and  the  life  of  Jesus  were, 
properly,  vicarious  ;  that  is  to  say,  were  owing  not  to 
any  personal,  individual  causes  whatever,  but  to  pure 
regard  for  others ;  the  death  was  suffered,  and  the 
life  was  lived,  wholly  and  only  for  men,  just  as  if 
that  death  and  that  life  had  been  a  ransom  given,  a 
price  paid,  for  human  salvation.  But  the  gulf  is 
measureless,  between  all  this  and  expiation  of  sin,  or 
satisfaction  to  justice.  We  then  pass  into  a  totally 
opposite  region,  and  we  have  then  to  import  into 
beautiful  and  simple  words  ideas  which  are  not  only 
inconsistent  with  their  natural  meaning,  but  really 
destructive  of  it.  Imputation  !  which  no  mind  can 
possibly  conceive  as  real,  but  which  every  mind  is 
forced  to  represent  as  wholly  fictitious.  Judicial 
anger !  though  what  that  can  be,  as  different  from 
real  anger,  it  is  impossible  to  understand.  The  pro- 
pitiating and  atoning  of  a  Being  in  whose  pure  love 


424  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OF 

alone,  it  is  admitted,  all  that  has  been  done  origi- 
nated !  The  idea  that  eternal  justice  is  defrauded, 
though  by  the  necessity  of  the  moral  constitution  of 
things  every  sin  at  once  inevitably  punishes  itself! 
The  farther  idea  that  justice,  robbed  in  one  quarter, 
avenges  and  satisfies  itself  in  another !  These  are 
some  of  the  fictions  of  law — such,  however,  as  no 
human  law  could  suffer — which  receive  no  sanction 
from  the  New  Testament,  but  are  at  variance  with 
every  section  of  it,  and  most  decidedly  of  all  at  vari- 
ance with  every  word  that  fell  from  our  blessed  Lord 
himself.  To  speak  of  the  sacrificial,  the  vicarious, 
the  atoning,  that  is,  reconciling  and  redeeming,  (be- 
cause love-originated  and  love-originating,)  sufferings 
of  Jesus  is  one  thing,  but  to  imagine  that  these  suf- 
ferings are  in  any  sense  expiatory — that  is,  that  they 
make  amends  for  sin,  appease  anger,  or  satisfy  jus- 
tice— is  another  and  a  totally  opposite  thing,  which 
has  no  sanction  from  God's  Word,  and  rests  wholly 
on  human  authority. 

Few  can  be  more  convinced  than  the  writer  is,  that 
the  representation  given  in  these  pages  of  the  early 
Christian  literature  in  its  relation  to  the  great  truths 
of  Christianity,  is  likely  to  be  more  or  less  one-sided 
and  influenced,  even  unconsciously,  by  pre-judgment 
or  prejudice.  But,  happily,  we  are  able  to  con- 
firm to  a  certain  extent,  and  more  than  confirm,  that 
representation  by  the  unequivocal  judgment  of  one 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    SATISFACTION.  425 

who  entertains  convictions  in  reference  to  expiation, 
diametrically  opposed  to  those  upheld  in  this  volume, 
and  who  is  the  latest,  as  he  is  certainly  one  of  the 
ahlest  and  most  ingenious,  defenders  of  the  schol- 
astic theology,  Dr  Shedd  of  Andover.i  Dr  Shedd 
entertains,  no  doubt,  that  the  early  Christian  writ- 
ings involve  the  received  doctrine,  and  are  entirely 
consistent  with  it.  He  even  affirms  that  "  the  idea 
of  vicarious  satisfaction  is  distinctly  enunciated  by 
them,"  2  though  we  entirely  deny  that,  apart  from 
the  language  of  the  New  Testament,  he  produces 
one  example  of  such  distinct  enunciation.  Else- 
where he  admits,  again  and  again,  in  the  most 
explicit  terms,  that  this  idea  is  scarcely  expressed 
at  all,  and  if  expressed,  it  is  so  only,  and  always, 
in  the  very  phraseology  of  the  Scriptures.  "  The 
apostolic  fathers  merely  repeated  the  Scripture 
phraseology  which  contained  the  truth,  which  was 
warm  and  vital  in  their  Christian  experience,  but 
did  not  enunciate  it  in  the  exact  and  guarded  state- 
ments of  a  scientific  formula."^  "  Taken  as  a  whole, 
the  body  of  Patristic  theology  exhibits  but  an  im- 
perfect theoretic  comprehension  of  the  most  funda- 
mental truth  in  the  Christian  system."*     "  Examin- 

1  "A  History  of  Christian  Doctrine,"  by  W.  G.  T.  Shedd,  D.D. 
Clark,  Edinburgh,  1865. 

2  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  207.  *  Ibid.,  p.  265. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  212. 


426  ORIGIN   AND   GROWTH   OF 

ing  them  (the  apostolic  fathers)  we  find  chiefly  the 
repetition  of  Scripture  phraseology,  without  further 
attempt  at  an  explanatory,  doctrinal  statement. 
There  is  no  scientific  •  construction  of  the  doctrine 
of  atonement  in  the  writings  of  these  devout  dis- 
ciples of  Paul  and  John."i  ''All  true,  scientific 
development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement,  it  is 
very  evident,  must  take  its  departure  from  the  idea 
of  divine  justice,  ....  In  proportion  as  the  mind 
of  the  Church  obtained  a  distinct  and  philoso- 
phic conception  of  this  great  attribute,  as  an  ab- 
solute and  necessary  principle  in  the  divine  nature 
and  in  human  nature,  was  it  enabled  to  specify,  with 
distinctness,  the  real  meaning  and  purport  of  the 
Kedeemer's  passion,  and  to  exhibit  the  rational  and 
necessary  grounds  for  it."  2  "  They  (the  apostolic 
fathers)  recognised  the  doctrine  of  atonement  for 
sin,  by  the  death  of  the  Kedeemer,  as  one  taught 
in  the  Scriptures,  and,  especially,  in  the  writings  of 
the  two  great  apostles,  Paul  and  John,  at  whose  feet 
they  had  been  brought  up.  They  did  not,  however, 
venture  beyond  the  phraseology  of   Scripture,  and 

they  attempted  no  rationale  of  the  doctrine 

The  evangelical  tenet  was  heartily  and  cordially 
held  in  their  religious  experience,  but  it  was  not 
drawn  forth  from  this,  its  warm  and  glowing  home, 
into  the  cool  and  clear  light  of  the  intellect  and  of 

1  Shedd,  vo].  ii.,  p.  207.  ^  /j^-^,^  pp^  2I6,  217. 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF   SATISFACTION.  427 

theological  science.  The  relations  of  this  sacrificial 
death  to  the  justice  of  God,  on  the  one  hand,  and  to 
the  conscience  of  man,  on  the  other — the  judicial 
reasons  and  grounds  of  this  death  of  the  most  ex- 
alted of  personages — were  left  to  be  investigated  and 
exhibited  in  later  ages,  and  by  other  generations  of 
theologians."  1  "Taking  the  term  'atonement,'  in 
its  technical  signification,  to  denote  the  satisfaction  of 
divine  justice  for  the  sin  of  man,  by  the  substituted 
penal  sufierings  of  the  Son  of  God,  we  shall  find 
a  slower  scientific  unfolding  of  this  great  cardinal 
doctrine  than  of  any  other  of  the  principal  truths 
of  Christianity.  Our  investigations  in  this  branch 
of  inquiry  will  disclose  the  fact,  that  it  was  re- 
served for  the  Protestant  Church  and  the  modern 
theological  mind  to  bring  the  doctrines  of  Soteriology 
to  a  correspondent  degree  of  expansion."  2 

I  venture  to  emphasise  this  closing  statement, 
because  I  hold  it  to  be  incontestably  true,  and 
because,  if  it  be  true,  it  is  then  past  all  belief 
that  that  which  took  fifteen  centuries  thoroughly 
to  interpret  and  unfold,  can  have  lain,  all  along, 
as  a  Divine  revelation  in  the  simple  language  of 
the  New  Testament.  Still  farther,  Dr  Shedd  al- 
lows, without  qualification,  that  the  doctrine  of 
satisfaction  to  Divine  justice  cannot  be  found  in 
the  writings  of  Origen;  and,  almost  as  freely,  that 

1  Shedd,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  211,  212.  =  Ibid.,  p.  204. 


428  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OP 

it  is  also  wanting,  with  anything  like  precision, 
even  in  those  of  Augustin.  Of  Origen,  at  least, 
he  expressly  asserts  that  his  leading  opinions  are 
''  incompatible  with  the  doctrine  of  a  satisfaction 
of  Divine  justice  ;''i  and  adds,  "that  only  a  very 
defective  and  erroneous  conception  of  this  cardinal 
truth  of  Christianity  is  to  be  found  in  the  Alex- 
andrian Soteriology."2  During  the  first  three  cen- 
turies, Dr  Shedd  imagines  an  effort  on  the  part 
of  the  Church,  but  an  unsuccessful  effort,  to  exhibit 
the  truth  in  a  speculative  and  accurate  form.  But 
the  success,  he  thinks,  was  greater  as  the  ages 
advanced.  "  The  historical  development  of  the  doc- 
trine evinces,  as  we  follow  it  down  the  centuries, 
that  a  gradual  progress,  in  acquiring  a  scientific 
understanding  of  the  Scripture  representation,  is 
going  on." 3  "We  find,  for  example,  Gregory 
Nazianzen  expressing  doubts,  and  raising  inquiries, 
which  indicate  that  the  theological  mind  was  sinking 
— (what!  after  400  years?) — more  profoundly  into 
the  substance  of  revelation,  and  drawing  nearer  to  a 
correct  logical  construction  of  the  great  doctrine,"  ^ — 
that  is  to  say,  the  doctrine  of  satisfaction,  as  now 
understood,  had  certainly  not  attained  its  deve- 
lopment, towards  the  end  of  the  fourth  Christian 
century,  and  was  then  only  drawing  nearer  to  it, 

1  Shedd,  vol.  ii.,  p.  236.  =  Ibid.,  p.  237. 

3  lUd.,  p.  244.  *  Ibid.,  p.  245. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   SATISFACTION.  429 

than  at  any  previous  period.  And  this  we  hold  to 
be  simply  true,  though  very  startling  and  irrepres- 
sibly  suggestive. 

Dr  Shedd  has  a  perfect  right  to  utter  his  honest 
impression,  that  the  doctrine  of  satisfaction  was 
"  warm  and  vital  in  the  Christian  experience"  of 
the  early  writers  to  whom  he  refers,  and  was  "  re- 
cognised by  them  as  one  taught  in  the  Scriptures," 
was  "heartily  and  cordially  held  in  their  religious 
experience,"  and  had  "  its  warm  and  glowing  home" 
there.  But  this  is  an  individual  impression,  and  no 
more — one,  too,  not  unlikely  to  be  created  uncon- 
sciously by  a  strong  predisposition.  Another  reader 
shall  rise  from  a  minute  and  careful  and  honest 
examination  of  the  whole  of  the  Christian  literature 
of  the  first  two  centuries,  with  as  deep  an  impression, 
but  directly  the  opposite — and  this,  too,  in  a  great 
degree,  owing  to  a  directly  opposite  mental  bias. 
But  apart  from  mere  impressions,  however  upright, 
the  fact  admitted  by  Dr  Shedd  is  this,  that  except 
in  the  use  of  Scriptural  phraseology,  there  is  not 
within  the  range  of  the  early  Christian  writings,  a 
single  expHcit  independent  statement,  to  the  effect 
that  in  the  death  of  Christ,  satisfaction  for  human 
sins  was  rendered  to  Divine  justice.  May  we  not 
venture  to  assert,  that  this  issue  must  have  been 
impossible,  had  such  a  thing  been  not  only  true, 
but    the     most   fundamental    and    vital    truth    of 


430  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OF 

Christianity.  The  occasions  presented  in  these 
writings,  we  might  say  the  clamorous  necessities 
arising  for  announcing  the  fact,  had  it  heen  true, 
and  above  all,  the  central  truth,  were  numerous  and 
palpable.  It  is  useless  to  suggest  that  the  doctrine 
awaited  development  and  construction.  It  certainly 
did,  but  the  radical  idea  underlying  it  was  simple 
enough,  and  could  have  been  easily  expressed. 
Time  might  be  required  so  to  fashion  it,  as  to 
make  it  fit  in  on  all  sides  to  a  completed  system 
of  theology.  But  it  was  easy  to  announce  that 
Jesus,  by  his  death,  had  expiated  human  sins,  and 
satisfied  Divine  justice,  and  that  in  consequence  of 
this,  a  free  pardon  was  now  righteously  extended 
to  the  chief  of  sinners.  And  this  was  not  only  easy 
to  announce,  but  supposing  it  to  be  the  one  saving 
truth  of  revelation,  it  was  essential  that  it  should  be 
proclaimed  aloud,  whatever  else  was  left  unuttered. 
Yet  it  is  precisely  this,  which  in  a  plain,  free,  and 
unambiguous  statement,  is  not  once  to  be  found  in 
any  early  Christian  writing. 

One  other  remarkable  fact  deserves  to  stand  by 
itself.  The  most  ancient  symbol  of  the  religion  of 
the  New  Testament  is  that  called  the  Apostles' 
Creed,  not  actually  composed  by  the  apostles,  but 
probably  dating  from  the  apostolic  age,  and  drawn 
up  from  other  earlier  forms,  in  which  converts  en- 
tering the  Church  were  wont  to  profess  their  new 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   SATISFACTION.  431 

belief.  This  symbol  contains  distinctly  the  doctrine 
of  the  forgiveness  of  sins;  but  other  ground  of 
forgiveness  than  the  pur  3  mercy  of  the  Holy  God 
— the  God  who  gave  Hiis  Son  to  live  and  to  die  for 
men — it  names  not,  nor  hints  at.  There  is  an 
extended  confession  of  the  Lord  and  Saviour  in 
these  words,  "I  believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  His  only 
Son,  our  Lord,  who  was  conceived  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  suffered  under 
Pontius  Pilate;  was  crucified,  dead  and  buried;  he 
descended  into  hell,  the  third  day  he  rose  again 
from  the  dead,  he  ascended  into  heaven,  and  sitteth 
at  the  right  hand  of  God  the  Father  Almighty; 
from  thence  he  shall  come  to  judge  the  quick  and 
the  dead," — ^but  that  is  all — no  more — not  a  hint 
of  satisfaction,  now  esteemed  the  fundamental  doc- 
trine of  the  New  Testament.  And  yet  this  was  the 
very  identical  confession  of  faith,  by  which  Jews  and 
Pagans  were  admitted  into  the  Christian  Church,  for 
at  least  two  or  three  centuries.  Dr  Shedd  gives  a 
summary  of  the  Christian  fafth,  by  Irenseus,  and 
another  by  Tertullian,!  portions  of  which,  so  far  as 
related  to  our  subject,  may  here  be  introduced.  They 
singularly  strengthen  the  impression  which  the 
earlier  symbol  is  fitted  to  create.  Iren^eus  asserts 
the  faith  of  the  Church  "  in  one  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son 
of  God,  who  was  made  flesh  for  our  salvation,  and 

1  Shedd,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  432,  433. 


432  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OF 

in  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  through  the  prophets  an- 
nounced the  dispensations,  and  the  advents,  and  the 
birth  from  a  virgin,  and  the  passion,  and  the  resur- 
rection from  the  dead,  and  the  incarnate  ascension 
into  heaven  of  the  beloved  Christ  Jesus,  our  Lord, 
and  his  reappearance  from  the  heavens,  with  the 
glory  of  the  Father/'  TertuUian  comprises  all  that  is 
essential  in  these  few  terms :  "  The  rule  of  faith  is 
one  only,  and  not  to  be  amended,  namely,  the  belief 
in  one  sole  omnipotent  God,  the  maker  of  the  world, 
and  in  his  Son  Jesus  Christ,  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary, 
crucified  under  Pontius  Pilate,  raised  from  the  dead 
on  the  third  day,  received  into  heaven,  seated  now 
on  the  right  hand  of  the  Father,  and  to  come  here- 
after to  judge  the  living  and  dead,  through  the  re- 
surrection of  the  flesh."  Where  is  Divine  justice, 
with  its  claims  to  be  satisfied?  where  Divine  anger, 
needing  to  be  appeased?  where  human  sin,  calling  for 
expiation?  Nowhere.  For  upwards  of  two  centuries, 
at  least,  these  ideas  were  wholly  unknown  to  primitive 
Christianity.     How,  -then,  were  they  originated  ? 

It  is  difficult  for  us  in  this  age  to  appreciate,  with 
a  broad  and  true  sympathy,  the  condition  of  Chris- 
tianity during  the  first  centuries  of  its  existence. 
Single-handed  it  had  to  contend  with  Paganisms, 
venerable  for  their  antiquity,  and  rooted  in  the  habits 
of  thought  and  of  life,  in  the  superstitious  fears  and 
in  the  religious  affections  of  the  nations.     It  had  to 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   SATISFACTION.  433 

confront  an  inveterate  Judaism,  and  it  had  to  meet 
in  argument,  as  best  it  could,  the  Platonic,  the 
Stoic,  the  Gnostic,  and  all  the  philosophies  of  the 
West  and  of  the  East.  Worst  of  all,  it  was  dis- 
tracted, broken  up,  and  sorely  scourged  by  intestine 
divisions  of  creed,  of  worship,  and  of  life  ;  and  these 
divisions  increased  in  bitterness,  and  became,  as  the 
ages  advanced,  ever  more  fundamental  in  their 
causes,  and  more  disastrous  in  their  effects.  The 
names  of  Cerinthus,  Marcion,  Hermogenes,  Monta- 
nus,  Arius,  Sabellius,  Pelagius,  and  others,  are  con- 
nected with  a  history  of  discord  during  the  first  four 
Christian  centuries,  almost,  if  not  quite,  without  a 
parallel.  And  it  is  never  in  strife,  as  even  a  limited 
experience  is  sufficient  to  discover,  that  truth  comes 
forth,  which,  on  the  contrary,  is  always  the  fruit  of 
impartial,  patient,  and  quiet  investigation.  In  all 
religious  controversy,  exaggeration,  distortion,  pre- 
judice, and  unfairness  are  certain  to  characterise,  not 
one,  but  both  of  the  contending  sides.  Truth  is 
never  wholly  with  either  at  the  time,  but  is  always 
a  later  result,  to  which  both  shall  ultimately  con- 
tribute, though  it  may  be  in  very  unequal  propor- 
tions. It  would  be  acting  in  the  face  of  all  experi- 
ence, to  accept,  as  final  and  just,  that  determination 
of  any  great  question  which  we  know  to  have  been 
reached  amidst  such  raging  disputes,  rancorous  per- 
sonal animosities,  wily  ambitions,  bitter  jealousies, 

2e 


434  ORIGIN    AND    GROWTH    OF 

and  headlong  and  unscrupulous  passion  for  victory 
as  disgraced  the  third,  fourth,  and  fifth  centuries. 
The  fact  is  not  to  be  gainsayed,  that  passing  down 
from  the  apostolic  age,  there  is  ever — with  some 
'beautiful  and  noble  individual  exceptions — less  and 
less  confidence  to  be  placed  either  in  the  decisions  or 
in  the  actings  of  the  Christian  Church.  If,  in  these 
pages,  we  have  seemed  to  attach  importance  to  the 
Christian  writings  of  the  two  first  centuries,  it  has 
not  been  because  the  writers  were  at  all  better  able 
— quite  the  reverse — than  expositors  in  the  present 
day  correctly  to  interpret  the  New  Testament,  but 
simply  because,  since  they  lived  near  to  the  times  of 
the  apostles,  if  a  certain  idea  had  been  announced  by 
these  inspired  men,  they  were  the  persons  most  likely 
to  have  caught  it  up,  and  to  have  expressed  it  in 
their  own  words.  And  because  they  certainly  did 
not  so  express  it,  we  have  concluded  that  the  idea  in 
question  was  not  apostolic,  but  must  have  had  a  far 
later  origin. 

Amidst  the  endless  controversies  which  from  the 
first  harassed  Christianity,  the  doctrine  of  human 
redemption  by  Christ  and  through  his  cross  never 
was,  for  at  least  many  centuries,  .properly  the  subject 
of  controversy  at  all.  It  would  seem  that  the  incar- 
nation of  the  Eternal  Logos,  the  rejection  and  cruci- 
fixion of  the  Incarnate  One,  and  in  both,  the  infinite 
love  of  a  Holy  God  to  men,  took  thorough  possession 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF    SATISFACTION.  435 

of  the  early  Church,  and  rooted  itself  in  the  judgment 
and  heart  of  myriads.  There  was  no  dispute  among 
them  concerning  this.  Jews  and  Pagans  alike  had 
come  to  know  and  feel  that  salvation,  real  inward 
deliverance,  was  here,  even  in  Divine,  crucified 
love.  Without  defining  or  arguing,  they  felt  within, 
a  contrition,  a  submission,  a  trust  in  God's  mercy, 
and  an  intense  aspiration  after  purity  never  known 
before.  The  cross  meant  to  them  Christ's  love, 
God's  love,  a  holy  love,  God  in  Christ  reconcil- 
ing the  world,  bringing  it  back  to  Himself,  and 
to  righteousness,  and  truth,  and  peace.  This  was 
life  for  death,  light  for  darkness,  a  force  breaking 
the  heart  of  stone,  and  sweetly  opening  their  souls, 
as  nothing  else  had  ever  done,  to  the  pure  influ- 
ences from  above.  Up  to  this  point  for  centuries 
they  were  in  peace,  untroubled  by  doubt  or  differ- 
ence respecting  Christ  and  his  cross.  They  asked 
no  questions.  They  did  not  p'hilosophise,  far  less 
syllogise  or  attempt — as  in  later  times  was  not  only 
attempted,  but  effected — to  work  out  the  problem  of 
salvation  by  the  method  of  Aristotle  and  the  laws  ot 
logic. 

At  a  very  early  period,  indeed,  there  were  some 
who,   following    the   bent   of    an    imaginative   and 
mystic  nature,  dwelt  unwisely,  as  many  in  all  the 
ages  up  to  the  present  have  often  done,  on  the  typi 
cal  language  of  Scripture,  and  who,  mistaking  fancj- 


436  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OF 

for  fact,  might  overpass  in  some  of  their  expressions 
the  limit  of  sound  reason  and  of  truth.  And  among 
the  causes  which  have  led  to  the  present  wide-spread 
notions  respecting  the  death  of  our  Lord,  the  very 
first,  we  believe,  and  not  the  least  powerful  because 
very  insidious,  was  the  misuse  of  typical  and  meta- 
phorical language.  The  Kedeemer  of  men,  as  has 
been  repeatedly  shown,  is  often  compared  in  his 
death  to  the  ancient  sacrifices ;  his  blood  is  likened 
to  a  ransom  paid  for  the  deliverance  of  a  captive,  and 
he  is  sometimes  virtually,  though  never  in  express 
terms,  represented  as  the  substitute  of  men.  These 
are  Scriptural  figures,  and  in  certain  easily  dis- 
covered respects,  they  convey  real  truth,  but  they 
are  figures  and  only  figures  of  truth,  and  not  them- 
selves truths.  The  spiritual  reality  which  ihey  em- 
body is  not,  as  has  been  and  is  still  so  often  imagined, 
a  mere  counterpart  and  no  more  of  the  literal  image 
which  represents  it,  but  something  widely  different, 
though  showing  distinct  points  of  resemblance, 
something  immeasurably  grander,  purer,  truer,  than 
any  possible  figure  can  suggest.  It  is  not  hard  to 
trace,  in  very  ancient  as  in  modern  times,  the  evil 
effects  of  this  misuse  and  misapplication  of  figures, 
and  of  an  allegorical  and  mystical  interpretation 
of  Holy  Scripture.  We  distinctly  believe  that  in 
this  is  to  be  found  the  original  deadly  root,  out 
of  which  grew  up,  in  the  course  of  centuries,  with 


THE   DOCTRINE   OP   SATISFACTION.  437 

its  many  branches,  the  doctrine  of  satisfaction  for 
sin. 

A  careful  examination  of  the  early  Christian  litera- 
ture shows  that  the  very  first,  faint  mooting  of  this 
notion,  though  the  peculiar  term  was  not  used  in  this 
sense  for  centuries  afterwards,  was  occasioned  by  a 
misapprehension  of  the  Scriptural  figure  of  a  ransom 
for  sin.  Imagining  this  to  be  not  a  similitude,  but 
a  literal  fact,  believing  that  an  actual  ransom  had 
been  paid  for  the  deliverance  of  men,  the  question 
arose  to  whom  was  the  ransom  paid.  The  first 
answer  given  to  this  question  was  most  natural  and 
perfectly  unassailable,  if  the  previous  thought  had 
been  just.  The  ransom  must  have  been  paid  to  the 
Being  by  whom  the  captives  were  held  in  bondage, 
and  out  of  whose  hands  they  were  to  be  delivered — 
it  must  have  been  paid  to  Satan,  the  tempter  and 
vanquisher  of  the  world.  The  writer  who  first 
distinctly  put  forth  this  idea  is  Irenasus,  the  disciple 
of  Polycarp.  One  passage  only,  out  of  many  which 
might  be  quoted,  we  shall  here  introduce,  and  chiefly 
for  the  reason  that  its  meaning  has  been  conceived 
to  be  altogether  opposed  to  the  notion  of  a  ransom  to 
Satan :  "  And  since  the  apostate  unjustly  lorded  it 
over  us,  and  while  we  belonged  of  right  to  Almighty 
God,  alienated  us  from  Him,  contrary  to  nature, 
making  us  his  own  peculiar  disciples,  the  Logos  of 
God,  all-powerful  and    not   failing   in    his  proper 


438  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OF 

justice,  dealt  righteously  even  with  the  apostacy 
itself,  redeeming  that  which  was  his  own  from  it, 
not  by  force,  as  he  (Satan)  had  done  in  the  begin- 
ning, but  by  persuasion,  as  became  a  God  who  per- 
suades and  does  not  employ  force  to  gain  what  He 
wishes,  so  that  neither  what  is  just  might  be  violated, 
nor  the  primitive  plan  of  God  be  destroyed."  i 

From  this  passage  Dr  Shedd  2  shows  clearly  that 
the  persuasive  influence  referred  to  is  employed  with 
man,  to  determine  him  to  cast  off  the  yoke  of  Satan. 
Undoubtedly  it  is  so.  Ireneeus  argues  that  God  did 
not  by  force  tear  the  captives  from  the  usurp- 
ing tyrant,  but  acted  so  as  that  men  of  their  own 
accord  should  renounce  his  service.  It  was  by  force, 
by  force  of  craft  and  falsehood,  that  Satan  had  en- 
slaved the  world.  But  not  thus  was  spiritual  deliver- 
ance to  be  achieved.  As  men  of  their  own  free  will 
had  surrendered  themselves  to  the  usurper,  even  so 

^  Lib.  v.,  c.  i.  1.  "Et  quoniam  in  juste  dominabatur  nobis, 
apostasia  et  cum  natura  essemus  Dei  omnipotentis,  alienavit  nos 
contra  naturam,  suos  proprios,  nos  faciens  discipulos,  potens  in 
omnibus,  Dei  verbum  et  nou  deficiens  in  sua  justitia,  juste  etiam 
adversus  ipsam  conversus  est  apostasiam,  ea  quae  sunt  sua,  redimens 
ab  eo,  non  cum  vi,  quemadmodum  ille  initio,  sed  secundum  suade- 
1am,  quemadmodum  decebat  Deum  suadentem  et  non  vim  inferen- 
tem,  accipere  quae  vellet,  ut  neque,  quod  est  justum  confriugsre- 
tur  neque  antiqua  plasmatio  Dei  deperiret." 

For  further  and  fuller  illustrations  of  the  views  of  Irenseus, 
the  following  passages  may  be  consulted:  lib.  iii.,  cc.  18,  19,  23; 
lib.  v.,  cc.  2,  14,  16,  21,  &c.,  &c. 

2  Shedd,  vol.  ii.,  p.  213. 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF    SATISFACTION.  439 

their  deliverance  from  his  bondage  must  be  not 
compulsory,  but  voluntary,  an  act  of  their  own  will. 
But  all  the  while,  it  is  as  true  as  ever,  and  as  patent 
as  it  well  can  be,  that  the  entire  discussion  conducted 
by  Irenasus  relates  wholly  and  solely  to  the  satis- 
faction of  the  claims  of  Satan  on  man.  Not  a  word 
is  uttered  of  meeting  the  demands  of  Divine  justice, 
as  if  that  had  been  defrauded.  Whatever  idea  of 
reparation,  or  amends,  or  compensation  is  expressed 
by  this  ancient  father,  it  is  to  Satan,  not  to  God,  that 
the  amends  are  made. 

It  is  not  doubted  that  the  reigning  idea  in  the 
writings  of  Origen,  in  relation  to  this  subject,  is  that 
of  a  ransom  paid  to  the  Evil  One  for  the  redemption 
of  men.  But  Origen  ventures  far  beyond  this  point, 
beyond  the  notion  of  a  compact  or  bargain  between 
Satan  and  God,  by  which  the  claims  of  Satan  were 
to  be  met,  and  shows  indisputably  that  anything  like 
satisfaction  to  God's  justice  had  no  place  in  his  mind. 
He  distinctly  believed  in  the  claims  of  Satan,  who 
held  men  in  bondage,  and  that  a  ransom  must  of 
necessity,  and  as  a  matter  of  common  equity,  be  paid 
to  him.  But,  in  the  contract  which  was  imagined 
to  have  been  entered  into,  he  conceived  that  the 
tempter  was  overreached  by  infinite  wisdom,  was  the 
victim  of  a  subtle  deception,  and  was  befooled  by 
the  very  terms  to  which  he  had  consented.  According 
to  Divine  arrangement,  a  man  was  given  into  his 


440  ORIGIN    AND    GROWTH    OP 

hands,  on  whom  he  was  free  to  exhaust  all  his 
temptations,  and  to  exert  his  utmost  power  and 
craft.  The  agreement  was,  that  if  this  Being  failed, 
men  were  for  ever  to  remain  in  bondage,  but  if  he 
were  unconquered,  men  were  to  be  forthwith  released. 
The  devil  in  his  pride  and  rage  conceived  the  idea, 
that  if  this  substitute  could  be  disowned,  rejected  by 
those  whom  he  came  to  rescue,  and  could  be  ignomi- 
niously  cast  out  of  the  world,  his  success  would  then 
be  certain.  But  success  proved  signal  defeat.  Jesus 
died,  but  by  his  death  the  world  was  redeemed. 

It  is  important  here,  because  bearing  essentially 
on  the  development  of  doctrine,  to  note  the  character- 
istics and  the  general  condition  of  visible  Christianity 
about  the  time  of  Origen.  At  the  introduction  of 
the  Mosaic  economy,  it  seemed  good  to  Divine 
wisdom,  to  commit  a  special  revelation  of  truth  to 
one  inconsiderable  nation,  to  separate  that  nation 
from  all  others  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  to  distinguish 
it  by  innumerable  peculiar  institutions  and  privileges, 
and  to  educate  it  for  a  sacred  destiny  in  relation  to 
the  rest  of  mankind.  Christianity,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  never  national,  and  was  never  meant  to  be 
so,  but  was  from  the  first  strictly  universal,  and  was 
thrown  utterly  defenceless  upon  the  wide  world.  It 
was  surrendered  to  all  nations,  and  all  times ;  to  men 
of  all  characters,  and  all  conditions,  without  a  single 
protection,  or  guard,  or  special  help  from  any  quarter. 


THE   DOCTEINE   OF    SATISFACTION.  441 

except  within  itself.     It  was  left  perfectly  alone,  to 
all  the  possible  hazards  of  an  evil  world,  and  it  had 
to  suffer,  in  common  with   everything  here  below, 
from  the  weaknesses,  and  the  errors,  the  depraved 
tastes,  and  the  bad  passions,  the  enmities  and  the 
crimes  of  men.     A  Divine  Providence  was  over  it, 
and  a  Divine  Spirit  was  within  it,  but  it  had  to 
take  its  full  share,  without  stint,  of  scathe  and  loss, 
in  the  great  conflict  with  darkness,  and  with  the  powers 
of  evil,  on  this  earth.     "What  it  was  in  the  mind  of 
God,  in  the   soul  of   Christ,  and  in  the  words  of 
the  inspired  Book,  was  one  thing;  what  it  became 
in  the  opinions  of  men,  and  in  the  outward  forms 
in    which    they  represented    it,   was    altogether    a 
dififerent  thing.     Itself  divine,  it  was  hindered  and 
damaged  in  ten  thousand  ways,  through  human  folly, 
human  error,  and  human  sin;  now  robbed  of  some 
distinctive  glory,  and  again  dishonoured  and  cor- 
rupted by  spurious  additions.     The  testimony  of  the 
best  ecclesiastical  historians  is  to  this  effect  uniformly 
and  decisively,  that  by  the  end  of  the  third  century, 
the  simple,  spiritual  religion  of  the  cross  had  become, 
and  afterwards  more  and  more  became,  a  huge  super- 
stition, purposely  and  not  distantly  assimilated  to  the 
old  idolatries  of  Greece  and  Kome.     The  principle  of 
assimilation,  with  a  view  to  overcome  the  hostility  of 
the   heathen,  was   openly  avowed  and  acted  upon. 
Festival  days,  reverence  of  images  and  of  holy  relics, 


44:2  ORIGIN    AND    GROWTH   OP 

processions  and  lustrations,  burning  of  incense,  gor- 
geous robes  and  vestures,  fastings,  scourgings,  macera- 
tion, and  asceticism  in  its  extreme  forms,  celibacy, 
monastic  life,  retirement  to  desert  solitudes,  venera- 
tion of  holy  places,  and  above  all,  of  the  holy  places 
in  and  around  Jerusalem,  pilgrimages  to  the  tombs 
of  the  martyrs — these,  belong  to  the  authentic  history 
of  the  third  and  fourth  and  later  centuries,  and  they 
involve  and  incriminate  the  most  honoured  names 
that  have  come  down  to  us.  St  Jerome,  and 
Ambrose,  and  Martin  of  Tours,  and  not  least  of  all, 
Augustin,  were  the  open  and  ardent  defenders  of  the 
superstitions  of  their  times. 

The  high  honour  in  which  martyrdom  was  held 
seems  to  have  been  among  the  earliest  and  the  most 
powerful  of  the  causes  of  degeneracy.  To  cherish 
the  memory  of  those  who  had  been  faithful  unto 
death,  was  not  only  natural,  it  was  simply  right  and 
just,  and  it  might  have  been,  under  wise  guidance, 
productive  of  nothing  but  good.  But  it  proved  a 
snare  and  a  sin.  Martyrdom  became  an  object  of 
desire,  because  of  the  posthumous  glory  which  it 
secured.  Multitudes  were  smitten  with  the  strange 
ambiiion  to  die  the  martyr's  death,  in  order  that  they 
might  gain  tke  martyr  s  crown.  In  the  mercenary 
and  debasing  arithmetic  of  the  Church,  the  martyr 
was  reckoned  to  have  yielded  a  peculiar  satisfaction 
to  the  mind  of  God,  over  and  above  what  was  strictly 


THE   DOCTEINE    OF    SATISFACTION.  443 

due,  and  to  have  done  a  work  of  pious  supererogation. 
The  word  "  satisfaction"  in  the  sense  of  atoning  for 
sin  was  never  once  used,  till  Anselm  many  centuries 
later  adopted  it ;  but  the  satisfactions  of  the  saints, 
their  good  deeds  beyond  the  strict  requirements  of 
law,  are  named  so  early  as  the  time  of  Tertullian,  and 
ere  long  became  an  accepted  phraseology.  They 
formed,  withal,  the  first  contributions  to  that  ima- 
ginary treasury  of  human  merit,  over  which  the 
Koman  Church  claims  to  preside,  and  on  which  she 
based  her  flagitious  system  of  indulgences. 

It  is  a  new  illustration  and  confirmation  of  what 
we  are  seeking  to  show  was  the  original  source  of 
error— the  misinterpretation  of  figurative  language. 
First  of  all,  the  phrase,  a  ransom  for  sin,  was  ima- 
gined to  be  not  a  metaphor  but  a  reality,  and  the 
idea  of  satisfaction  to  the  claims  of  Satan  was  the 
result.  Then  again,  the  misleading  figure  was  that 
of  sins,  as  debts  due  to  God.  And  they  are  so,  and 
may  justly  be  so  called  in  several  quite  obvious  re- 
spects. It  is  a  fact  that  we  owe  obedience  to  God, 
and  failing  to  obey  Him,  we  may  be  said  to  be  charge- 
able with  an  unpaid  debt.  The  language  is  perfectly 
intelligible  and  simple.  But  it  is  figure,  not  fact ;  it 
is  a  legitimate  similitude,  but  no  more  ;  and  the  reality 
to  which  it  points  is  immeasurably  higher  and  more 
sacred  than  the  mere  similitude  suggests.  We  have 
resisted  God,  and  conscience,  and  reason,  and  have 


444  ORIGIN   AND   GROWTH   OF 

set  our  will  against  God's  will.  We  have  wronged 
God,  wronged  ourselves,  and  wronged  the  whole  uni- 
verse of  moral  being,  in  the  commission  of  even  a 
single  sin.  That  is  the  reality,  that  is  the  fact,  and 
no  figure,  and  we  descend  incalculably  when  from 
this  we  pass  to  the  similitude  of  a  debtor  and  creditor 
account  between  God  and  His  creatures,  with  works 
of  supererogation  on  the  one  side,  and  penances  and 
inflictions  or  atonements  of  any  kind  on  the  other 
side. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  evident  that  from  an  early 
period  the  general  idea  of  yielding  satisfaction  to  the 
mind  of  God,  though  not  in  the  sense  of  appeasing 
His  anger,  but  in  the  sense  of  awakening  His  com- 
placency, was  familiar  to  Christian  thought.  Besides 
this,  even  the  special  idea  of  satisfaction  to  justice, 
though  not  to  Divine  justice,  but  only  justice  in  re- 
spect of  the  claims  of  Satan,  had  been  freely  expressed 
and  accepted.  All  the  while,  in  these  early  centuries, 
not  one  Christian  writer  is  found  to  advocate  satisfac- 
tion to  Divine  justice  on  account  of  human  sin,  as  if 
God's  justice  had  been  defrauded  and  dishonoured,  and 
as  if  it  needed  and  must  receive  adequate  reparation. 
This  dogma  waited,  for  at  least  three  hundred  years 
after  the  death  of  Christ,  before  it  was  distinctly  and 
unmistakably  announced  to  the  world.  Athanasius, 
one  of  the  most  imperious,  daring,  and  subtle  con- 
troversialists of    any  age,  was   the   very  first  who 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF    SATISFACTION.  445 

expressed  the  idea  with  perfect  clearness  ;  and  he  not 
only  expresses  it  distinctly,  but  contends  for  it,  though 
briefly  and  cursorily,  on  the  very  grounds  which  were 
afterwards  taken  with  such  exhaustive  fulness,  and 
with  dire  effect,  by  Anselm.  One  short  sentence  will 
be  sufficient  to  confirm  this  statement :  "  The  first 
and  principal  ground  of  the  Logos  becoming  man 
was,  that  the  condemnation  of  the  law,  by  which  we 
are  burdened  v/ith  guilt  and  eternal  punishment, 
might  be  removed  by  the  payment  of  the  penalty."  ^ 
This  sentence,  it  is  enough  to  note,  does  not  stand 
alone,  but  is  one  of  many  scattered  passages,  all  more 
or  less  clear  and  decisive. 

Passing  on  to  the  age  of  Augustin,  we  find  es- 
pecially in  his  confessions,  and  in  the  touching 
utterances  of  his  religious  experience,  what  plainly 
involves  the  idea,  though  the  distinctive  term  is  not 
employed,  of  a  satisfaction  to  Divine  justice  on  account 
of  human  sin.  But  this  is  very  far  from  being  per- 
sistently upheld,  and  is  associated  closely  with  the 
notion  of  satisfaction  to  the  claims  of  Satan.  Dr 
Shedd  admits,  "  that  [by  Augustin]  the  claims  of 
Satan  are  sometimes  recognised  in  connexion  with 
those  of  [Divine]  justice."  2  And  in  reference  to  the 
earlier  Patristic  theology  as  a  whole,  he  confesses 
freely  that,  "  One  characteristic  which  strikes  the  at- 

^  De  Incar.,  c.  11-14,  so  quoted  and  translated  by  Shedd,  ii.  243. 
2  Shedd,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  253-4. 


44G  ORIGIN    AND    GROWTH,    ETC. 

tention  is  the  important  part  which  the  doctrine  of 
Satan  plays  in  it."  l  Again,  he  states  with  great 
force,  basing  the  statement  on  what  he  deems  strong 
and  sound  reason :  "  In  the  writings  of  the  first  three 
centuries,  disproportionate  attention  is  bestowed  upon 
the  connexion  between  redemption  and  the  kingdom 
of  darkness,  and  upon  the  relation  of  apostate  man  to 
Satan.  The  attribute  of  Divine  justice  ought  to  have 
been  brought  more  conspicuously  into  view  by  the 
theologians  of  this  period,  and  the  person  and  agency 
of  the  devil  have  retired  more  into  the  background."  2 
Dr  Shedd  is  perfectly  entitled  to  think  so,  but  it  is  a 
matter  of  fact  that  these  early  fathers  did  not.  Un- 
questionably, their  views  were  not  those  of  their  critic, 
but  something  widely,  even  essentially  difi'erent.  And 
from  the  time  of  Augustin  to  the  middle  of  the 
eleventh  century,  the  two  aspects  of  satisfaction,  as 
referring  to  the  claims  of  God  or  to  the  claims  of 
Satan — now  the  one,  and  now  the  other,  and  again 
both — are  set  forth  by  difi'erent  writers  of  various 
authority.  But  at  this  period,  through  the  infiuence 
of  the  writings  of  Anselm,  a  change  of  the  most  es- 
sential nature  was  effected,  creating  a  totally  new  era 
in  the  development  of  Christian  doctrine. 

1  Shedd,  vol.  ii.,  p.  215.  *  Ibid.,  p.  215. 


SECTION  SECOND — FROM  THE  AGE  OF  ANSELM  TO  THE 
PRESENT  TIME. 

Athanasius  and  Anselm — Second,  Deeper  Source  of  Error — Pride 
of  Eeason — Intellectual  Subtlety — False  Philosophy — Misap- 
plication of  Logic — Anselm's  Tractate,  Logical,  not  Philoso- 
phical— Conclusion  False — Thomas  Aquinas — Luther — Secret 
of  his  Power — Success  of  Evangelical  Churches — Calvin,  Theo- 
logian of  Reformation— Evangelical  Transcendentalism — Es- 
sential Relation  of  Divine  to  Human — God,  Father  of  Souls 
— Loving,  Redeeming  Father. 

WE  have  judged  that  Athanasius  was  the  first  to 
put  forth  clearly,  and  to  argue,  though  in 
brief  and  occasional  passages,  the  dogma  of  satisfac- 
tion for  sin.  There  lies  in  this  fact  a  deeper  signifi- 
cance than  is  at  first  apparent.  No  one  acquainted 
with  the  history  of  the  age  in  which  this  extraordi- 
nary man  lived,  and  with  the  part  he  took  in  the 
discussion  of  those  dark  questions  which  were  then 
agitated,  can  doubt  that  whatever  else  he  was,  as  a 
resolute  and  expert  dialectician  he  had  no  superior, 
scarcely  an  equal.  No  problem  was  so  profound,  no 
dogma  was  so  transcendental,  as  to  deter  him  from 


448  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OP 

the  attempt  to  subject  it  to  his  intellect,  and  to  the 
laws  of  ratiocination.  A  penetrating,  dauntless,  fiery 
soul,  he  quailed  not  even  before  the  awful  mystery  of 
the  uncreated  essence,  the  Trinity,  the  eternal  gene- 
ration of  the  Logos,  and  the  procession  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  He  was  one  who  would  understand,  explain, 
define  everything,  and  master  it  by  force  of  intellect, 
and  submit  it  to  the  laws  and  the  terms  of  logic. 

In  connexion  with  this  fact,  let  it  be  here  borne  in 
mind,  as  was  noted  in  the  previous  section,  how  often 
Dr  Shedd  laments,  in  the  first  three  centuries,  "  the 
slow  unfolding  of  the  great,  cardinal  doctrine  (as  he 
judges)  of  Christianity,"  i  and  that  in  the  writings  of 
the  period  there  is  "no  scientific  construction  of  the 
doctrine  of  atonement,"  2  that  the  fathers  "  attempted 
no  rationale  of  the  dogma,"  ^  and  did  not  present 
"  the  judicial  reasons  and  grounds  of  the  death  of 
the  most  exalted  of  personages."  ^  He  speaks  also  of 
the  great  necessity  of  "  the  Church  obtaining  a  dis- 
tinct and  philosophic  conception  of  this  great  attri- 
bute,"^ (justice,)  so  as  to  "  exhibit  the  rational  and 
necessary  grounds  "4  for  the  Kedeemer's  death.  Such 
phrases  as  "a  true,  scientific  development  of  this 
doctrine,"  4  « a  correct,  logical  construction  of  the 
great  doctrine,"  5  "  a  scientific  understanding  of  it,"  6 
putting  it  "in  the  exact  and  guarded  statements  of  a 

1  Shedd,  vol.  ii.,  p.  204.       ^  jj^i^  ^  p,  207.        ^  jud^^  p,  211. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  216.  5  Ibid.,  p.  245.        ^  j^^^^  p^  244. 


THE   DOCTEINE    OF    SATISFACTION.  449 

scientific  formula,"!  are  not  rare,  and  give  a  charac- 
ter to  his  discussion  of  the  subject  which  it  is  scarcely 
possible  to  misinterpret. 

Deliberately,  we  mean  to  maintain  that  that  later 
application  of  the  forms  and  the  laws  of  Aristotle  to 
the  actings  and  the  words  of  God,  which  Dr  Shedd 
so  much  desiderates,  and  the  want  of  w^hich  in  the 
earlier  centuries  he  bewails  so  deeply,  was  one  of  the 
worst  evils  which  ever  afflicted  Christianity,  and  has 
entailed  an  incalculable  amount  of  injury.  The 
primary  cause  of  error  was  the  misinterpretation  of 
inetaphorical  language,  converting  similitude  into 
reality,  and  figure  into  fact.  But  a  second,  and  far 
deeper  and  more  potent  cause,  was  the  transference 
of  Divine  thoughts  and  Divine  procedure  from  their 
own  free  and  wide  S|)here,  and  their  manifold  rela- 
tions, to  the  modes  and  terms  of  human  logic.  It 
is  a  most  significant  fact  that  Athanasius,  an  accom- 
plished and  adventurous  dialectician,  should  have 
been  the  first  to  put  forward  the  dogma  of  satisfac- 
tion in  unambiguous  words,  and  to  place  it  on  its 
imagined  impregnable  ground.  It  is  more  signifi- 
cant and  suggestive  still  that  this  dogma,  after  700 
years  from  the  time  of  Athanasius,  should  liave  found 
its  greatest  champion,  and  by  far  its  ablest  expositor, 
in  Anselm,  the  vigorous,  and,  to  some  extent,  the 
successful  antagonist  of  Abelard  and  Eoscelin,  one 

1  Shedd,  vol.  ii.,  i\  265. 

2f 


450  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OP 

among  tlie  most  distinguislied  leaders  of  tlie  scholas- 
tic philosophy,  in  an  age  when  it  was  reaching  its 
highest  vigour,  and  beginning  to  claim  its  widest 
authority,  when  Aristotle  was  rising  to  supremacy, 
and  the  magic  w^ords  "magister  ait"  were  sufficient 
to  silence  any  disputant. 

Anselm  is  the  veritable  father  and  founder  of  that 
theology  w^hich  is  adopted,  with  little  modification, 
by  the  Protestant  Evangelical  Churches  of  Chris- 
tendom.i  His  "  Cur  Deus  Homo"  is  the  mine  from 
which  many  later  controversialists  have  dug  out 
their  best  materials ;  and  it  contains,  in  substance 
and  even  in  form,  all  the  strongest  arguments  by 
which  the  dogma  of  satisfaction  is  defended  at  this 
day.  The  claims  of  Satan  are  here  entirely  set 
aside ;  Anselm  argues  solely  for  the  absolute  neces- 
sity of  a  complete  satisfaction  to  the  justice  of  God, 
and  for  the  first  time  affixes  this  sense  to  the 
favourite  term  of  artificial  theology,  "  satisfaction.'' 
In  the  briefest  possible  compass,  his  argument  is 
this: — Sin  is  a  debt,  and  must  be  paid.  God  has 
been  robbed  of  His  due,  and  as  the  Infinitely  Just 
One,  He  cannot  sufier  the  robbery  to  be  unpunished. 
A  less  cannot  be  accepted  for  a  greater  satisfaction. 
Sin  is  infinite  demerit,  and  demands  an  infinite 
punishment.  Only  God  can  satisfy  the  claims  of 
God ;  but  also,  only  man  can  satisfy  for  the  sin  of 

1  Anselmi  Opera  Omnia,  Migne,  1853,  pp.  361-451. 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF   SATISFACTION.  451 

man.     Hence  the  God-man,  and  the  infinite  merit  of 
the  sacrifice  of  the  cross  ! 

Anselm's  tractate  is  a  finished  specimen  of  the 
best  scholastic  productions  of  the  period.  With 
something  of  their  tediousness  and  pettiness,  it  is 
nevertheless  full  and  thorough  and  exhaustive,  and 
as  a  piece  of  logical  argumentation,  it  is  invulner- 
able, if  the  premises  be  admitted.  But  the  premises 
are  false ;  on  the  basis  of  the  principles  which  have 
been  advocated  in  the  earlier  portions  of  this  volume, 
we  maintain  that  they  are  thoroughly  false.  The 
simple  fact  is,  that  sin  always  exacts  its  own  punish- 
ment, and  always  continues,  so  long  as  it  remains  in 
the  soul,  to  exact  its  own  punishment.  And  in  this 
fact,  the  justice  which  ordains  always  secures  its  own 
satisfaction.  But  when  sin  has  been  punished,  and 
when  justice  has  been  satisfied,  it  seems  to  have 
been  forgotten  by  the  great  logician,  or  regarded  as  a 
fact  of  no  importance,  that  there  remains  something 
still  untouched,  and  it  is  the  only  thing  which  re- 
mains, the  state  of  the  sinning  mind,  a  state  of 
disregard  and  resistance  to  God,  a  feeling  of  indif- 
ference and  of  aversion.  No  punishment,  no  satis- 
faction, however  stern,  can  reach  this,  or  make  the 
slightest  amends  for  it.  This  is  a  true  debt,  which 
can  never  be  paid,  except  by  the  mind  itself  being 
changed.  The  wrong  done  to  our  nature,  and  the 
wrong  done  to  the  justice  of  the  universe,  may  be 


4:52  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OF 

met,  and  are  always  met,  by  adequate  punishment ; 
but  the  cruel  wrong  done  to  God  by  the  state  of  our 
minds,  their  alienation  and  their  enmity,  cannot  be 
atoned  for  while  it  remains,  and  it  cannot  even  be 
touched,  except  by  one  instrument.  The  only  thing 
possible  even  for  God  to  do,  is  to  kill  enmity  by 
love;  to  forgive,  and  to  destroy  by  forgiving,  that 
which  is  not  less  cruel  to  Him  than  ruinous  to  us. 
In  this  relation  the  teaching  of  the  Holy  Saviour  is 
full  of  power  as  of  truth.  He  bids  us  go  to  God 
and  say  to  Him,  "  Forgive  us  our  debts,  as  we  for- 
give our  debtors."  Do  we  forgive  our  debtors  only 
when  the  debts  are  paid,  and  because  they  are  paid, 
and  if  we  did  so,  could  forgiveness  have  any  true 
meaning  ? 

Dr  Shedd's  admiration  of  Anselm's  work  is  almost 
without  limit.  It  is  a  "  remarkable  composition, 
which  exhibits  a  depth,  breadth,  and  vigour  of 
thinking  that  is  not  surpassed  by  any  production  of 
the  same  extent  in  theological  literature,  and  de- 
serves to  be  studied  and  pondered  by  every  Protes- 
tant divine.  For  it  is  obvious  to  remark  that  such 
a  view  of  the  atonement  as  is  here  exhibited  is 
thoroughly  biblical  and  thoroughly  Protestant."! 
"His  (Anselm's)  view  of  the  work  of  Christ  agrees 
substantially  with  that  of  the  Keformation."2  "If 
his  (Anselm's)  views  and  experience,  as  exhibited  in 

1  Shedd,  vol.  ii.,  p.  282.  »  Ibid.,  p.  274. 


J 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF    SATISFACTION.  453 

the  '  Cur  Deus  Homo/  could  have  become  those 
of  the  Church,  of  which  he  was  a  member  and  an 
ornament,  the  revival  of  the  doctrine  of  justification 
by  faith  in  the  Lutheran  Keformation  would  not  have 
been  needed/'  i  And  the  foundation  of  Dr  Shedd'o 
excessive  estimate  of  Anselm's  work  is  revealed  very 
unambiguously  by  himself.  "  So  far  as  the  theory 
of  vicarious  satisfaction  is  concerned,  this  little  trea- 
tise contains  the  substance  of  the  reformed  doctrine, 
while,  at  the  same  time,  it  enunciates  those  philoso- 
phical principles  which  must  enter  into  every  scien- 
tific construction  of  this  cardinal  truth  of  Christian- 
ity." 2  Again,  "Anselm  begins  and  ends  with  the 
idea  of  an  absolute  necessity  of  an  atonement,  in 
order  to  the  redemption  of  man.  Everything  is 
referred  to  a  metaphysical  or  necessary  ground,  and 
hence  we  have  in  this  theory  the  first  metapliysique 
of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  atonement."  ^  And 
again,  "  Anselm  is  the  first  instance  in  which  the 
theologian  plants  himself  upon  the  position  of  philo- 
sophy, and  challenges,  for  the  doctrine  of  vicarious 
satisfaction,  both  a  rational  necessity  and  a  scientific 
rationality.  The  fundamental  position  of  the  '  Cur 
Deus  Homo'  is,  that  the  atonement  of  the  Son  of  God 
is  absolutely  or  metaphysically  necessary,  in  order  to 
the  remission  of  sin.  Anselm  concedes,  by  implica- 
tion, throughout  his  work,  that  if  it  cannot  be  made 

1  Shedd,  vol.  ii.,  p.  285.      ^  m^,^  p.  283.     '  Ibid,  pp.  274,  275. 


454  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OF 

out  that  the  vicarious  satisfaction  of  Divine  justice, 
by  the  theanthropic  sufferings  of  Jesus  Christ,  is 
required  by  a  necessary  and  immanent  attribute  of 
the  Divine  nature,  then  a  scientific  character  cannot 
be  vindicated  for  the  doctrine ;  for  nothing  that  is 
not  metaphysically  necessary  is  scientific."  i 

These  high  sounding  and  not  measured  phrases, 
applied  to  the  most  sacred  subject  of  thought,  are 
very  painful  and  grating.  "  Enunciation  of  philo- 
sophical principles,"  "  scientific  construction  of  a 
revealed  truth,"  "  metaphysical  ground,"  "  the  first 
metaphysique  of  the  Christian  doctrine,"  "  the  theo- 
logian planting  himself  on  the  position  of  philoso- 
phy." Where  are  we,  amidst  this  bewilderment  of 
sounds,  very  strange  to  the  anxious  student  of  a  life 
and  death  question  of  the  New  Testament ;  and  all 
this  has  reference  to  a  date  a  thousand  years  later 
than  the  death  of  Christ.  Anselm  was  a  man  of 
vigorous  and  cultivated  intellect,  and  of  undoubted 
piety ;  but  if  his  discovery  and  demonstration  were 
not  only  true,  but  the  essential  and  saving  truth  of 
Christianity,  how  came  they  to  be  delayed  for  an 
entire  millennium?  One  is  prompted  to  ask,  are 
we  dealing  with  an  early,  divine  message,  commu- 
nicated for  the  salvation  of  the  world  1800  years 
ago,  or  not  rather  v/ith  a  late,  human  invention? 
Is  it  a  revelation  from  God  which  is  before  us,  a 

1  Shedd,  vol.  ii.,  p.  275. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OP    SATISFACTION".  455 

revelation  to  men,  intended  to  be  understood  by 
men,  by  common  men,  by  all  sorts  of  men,  by  men 
everywhere,  and  in  every  age  ?  Or  is  it  not  much 
rather  an  intricate  problem  which  can  be  solved, 
a  dark,  intellectual,  enigmatic,  sibylline  utterance, 
which  can  be  understood  and  appreciated,  at  all 
events,  can  be  interpreted  only  by  a  profound  philo- 
soj)her,  or  an  expert  logician  ? 

No  enlightened  Christian  would  willingly  believe 
that  either  philosophy  or  logic  was  distinctly  at  war 
with  any  doctrine  of  revelation.  Happily,  the  ten- 
dency, and  even  the  effect  of  modern  discussion,  how- 
ever  mischievous  and  lawless  in  some  directions,  have 
been  to  establish  a  deep  harmony  between  the  moral 
constitution  of  man,  the  intuitions,  and  principles, 
and  powers  of  his  higher  nature,  and  the  messages 
and  the  teachings  of  the  New  Testament.  And  it 
needs  no  prophetic  eye  to  foresee  that  the  more  sim- 
ply and  reverently  that  holy  record  is  studied,  and 
the  more  it  is  set  free  from  a  vicious  metaphysics 
and  an  unsound  logic,  the  more  surely  it  will  be 
found  to  meet  the  deepest  wants,  to  harmonise  with 
the  essential  nature,  and  to  awaken  the  living  re- 
sponse of  the  human  spirit,  and  the  more  serenely  and 
resistlessly  it  will  vindicate  for  itself  a  Divine  origin, 
as  a  true  message  from  the  great  Father  of  all  souls. 
A  false  philosophy,  long  dominant,  but  now  rejected 
by  all  the  best  endowed  minds  of  Europe,  has  given 


456  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OF 

birth  to  most  of  the  errors  of  dogmatic  theology. 
Perhaps  philosophy,  rightly  conceived  and  aided  by 
a  sound  logic,  shall  yet  be  the  instrument  for  correct- 
ing these  errors,  and  for  guiding  honest  souls  to 
accept  the  teachings  and  the  facts  of  the  New 
Testament,  simply  as  they  are,  without  any  attempt 
to  build  them  up  into  a  system,  cemented  with 
untempered  mortar,  and  resting  on  a  foundation  of 
sand. 

Philosophy,  in  its  own  place,  is  only  noble,  elevat- 
ing, and  sanctifying.  To  descend  beneath  phenomena 
to  the  intelligible  principles  of  which  they  are  the 
outward  form,  and  by  which  alone  they  can  be  truly 
understood  ;  to  look  with  wide,  open  eye  on  the  vast 
kingdom  of  fact  and  of  thought ;  to  investigate,  with 
patient  toil,  the  relation  between  these  two  ;  to  search, 
amidst  seeming  disorder,  for  an  essential  harmony  of 
things ;  to  trace  up  multiplicity  and  diversity  to  an 
all-embracing  unity,  and  with  the  profound  con- 
viction, all  the  while,  of  the  necessary  limitation  of 
our  faculties,  and  the  entire  assurance  that,  at  the 
best,  it  is  only  an  approximation,  a  distant  and 
partial  approximation  to  truth,  which  is  possible  for 
us,  nevertheless ;  to  labour  to  interpret,  up  to  our 
measure,  the  great  universe  of  God — this  is  among 
the  grandest  and  the  holiest  aims  of  human  wisdom. 
In  the  widest  sense,  theology  belongs,  of  right,  to 
such  a  philosophy,  and  constitutes  its  highest  and 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    SATISFACTION.  457 

most  sacred  department.  Nothing  can  be  plainer  in 
the  history  of  the  ages  than  that  philosophy  and 
theology  have  acted  and  reacted  most  powerfully  the 
one  on  the  other.  And  if  a  false  philosophy  in  the 
past  has  proved  baneful  in  the  sacred  region,  it 
may  be,  that  from  this  very  region,  good  shall  be 
returned  for  the  evil,  and  the  secret  of  a  philosophy 
_^uch  as  the  noblest  human  sage  never  dreamed  of, 
shall  be  found  to  lie  in  the  inspirations  of  a  simpler 
and  diviner  theology. 

Logic,  as  revealing  the  laws  according  to  which 
the  processes  of  thought  can  alone  be  accurately 
conducted,  is  invaluable  for  its  own  proper  purpose, 
but  it  cannot  be  too  often  repeated,  that  that  pur- 
pose is  never  the  discovery  of  new  truth.  Logic  can 
discover  nothing,  can  never  rise  higher  than  its 
source,  or  lift  us  up  from  the  known  to  the  yet 
unknown.  It  can  only  interpret,  vindicate,  and 
support  what  by  other  means  has  been  already  dis- 
covered. It  starts  from  premises  which  it  takes  for 
granted  at  the  outset,  and  it  can  bring  nothing  forth 
of  them  which  is  not  already  contained  in  them,  and 
would  only  stultify  itself  by  an  attempt  of  the  kind. 
It  can  eliminate,  interpret,  and  defend  what  is 
involved  in  the  premises,  but  nothing  more.  It 
would  be  hard  to  discover  philosophy,  in  any  worthy 
sense,  in  the  ''  Cur  Deus  Homo."  Such  views  of 
the  intelligent  universe,  as  are  presented  in  it,  suggest 


^5S  OKIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OF 

notliing  so  much  as  a  court-liouse  and  a  criminal 
trial,  and  such  views  of  God,  as  it  contains,  would 
transform  the  great  Father  of  souls  into  a  stern  and 
punctilious  judge,  in  whom  mercy  has  no  place,  and 
whose  chief  glory  is  the  rigour  of  His  sentences,  and 
the  relentless  exactitude  with  which  they  are  executed. 
The  work  is  pre-eminently  logical,  but  not  philo- 
sophical, and  the  logic  is  faultless,  except  in  that 
which  is  most  of  all  essential,  its  foundation.  The 
argument  is  logically  accurate,  and  the  conclusion 
is  fairly  deduced,  but  the  premises  being  false,  the 
whole  process  is  vitiated,  and  the  conclusion  is  an 
aggravated  untruth. 

We  return  to  the  position  that  the  second  and  the 
deeper  originating  cause  of  the  dogma  of  satisfac- 
tion was  the  application  of  a  false  philosophy,  and 
an  unsound  logic  to  revealed  truth,  and  to  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  New  Testament.  Men  could  not  or 
would  not  content  themselves  with  the  simple  words 
of  Scripture.  They  must  justify  these  words,  must 
discover  not  their  plain  meaning,  but  their  unex- 
pressed secret  ground  in  the  mind  of  God,  must 
arrange  them  in  logical  order  and  put  them  into  the 
idolised  form  of  the  syllogism.  The  New  Testament 
naturally  and  ingenuously  interpreted  was  abundantly 
plain.  It  proclaimed  that  God  loved  the  world,  the 
sinful  w^orld,  was  not  willing  that  His  children 
should  perish  in  their  separation  from  Him,  but  was 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF    SATISFACTION.  459 

infinitely  ready  to  receive  them,  and  wanted  nothing 
at  their  hands,  but  that  they  should  believe  His 
love,  and  yield  back  their  hearts  to  Him.  The  New 
Testament  proclaimed  that,  in  order  to  convince  men 
of  His  holy  mercy,  God  had  come  near  to  them,  as 
no^-r  as  it  was  possible  for  Him  to  come,  and  had  in- 
x  babited,  possessed,  and  pervaded  a  human  soul  in  a 
human  body,  and  made  it  his  home,  in  a  sense  which 
it  is  impossible  for  us  to  fathom,  but  of  which  even 
our  poor  conceptions  are  overwhelming.  The  New 
Testament  proclaimed  that  this  God-man,  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord,  came  forth  as  the  chosen  medium,^  through 
which  men  might  be  reconciled  to  God,  and  was  pre- 
pared for  any  amount  of  sacrifice,  involved  in  a  direct 
connexion  of  the  human  with  the  divine,  and  as  it 
proved  a  direct  collision  between  the  human  and  the 
divine.  Purposely  concealed,  he  was  not  only  un- 
known, but  cruelly  rejected  and  despised,  and  at  last 
in  his  meek  wisdom,  his  Divine  purity,  his  tenderness 
and  spiritual  beauty  and  grace,  he  could  not  be  en- 
dured, and  was  ignominiously  slain  and  cast  forth. 
"  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  taketh  away  the 
sins  of  the  world  ! "  not  by  gaining  for  men  a  judicial, 
nominal  acquittal  from  sins,  all  whose  inherent  penal 
force  necessarily  remained,  but  by  eradicating  the 
evil  principle  itself  out  of  their  hearts,  killing  it  at  its 
root  and  casting  it  forth. 

^  See  note  on  page  27. 


460  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OF 

But  this  was  not  enough  for  the  great  contro- 
versialist of  the  fourth  century,  and  for  the  chief 
master  of  logic  in  the  scholastic  age.  That  tendency 
to  philosophise  or  rather  to  syllogise  on  sacred 
mysteries,  which  from  the  time  of  Athanasius  had 
struggled  to  embody  and  enthrone  itself  in  the 
Church,  at  last  found  its  anointed  high  priest  and  its 
final  and  exhaustive  exponent  in  Anselm.  The  pride 
of  reason  and  the  passion  for  logical  subtlety  had 
long  striven,  and  at  last  succeeded  in  erecting  them- 
selves as  supreme  in  the  sphere  of  religious,  as  of 
speculative  and  scientific,  truth.  God's  Word  appealed, 
and  always  does  appeal,  to  the  understanding,  it  is 
true ;  but  men  failed  to  perceive  that  through  the 
understanding  it  addressed  immediately  and  chiefly 
the  moral  nature,  the  consciousness  of  evil,  the  sense 
of  need,  and  the  great  fountain  of  spiritual  emotion 
in  the  heart,  which  is  stirred  to  its  depths,  by  nothing 
so  much  as  the  conviction  of  ingratitude,  coupled 
with  the  thought  of  Divine  patience,  and  of  un- 
prompted, undeserved,  unrequited,  and  abused  Divine 
graciousness.  Instead  of  feeling  with  their  hearts, 
and  taking  in  to  the  deepest  depths  of  their  moral 
being,  that  truth  which  their  intellect  had  at  once 
perceived,  men  must  explain  and  reason  out  what 
God  had  not  explained,  what  indeed  needed  no  ex- 
planation, 'and  found  its  perfect  solution  in  the  in- 
stant experience  of  the  soul  itself.     Unsatisfied  with 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   SATISFACTION.  461 

clear  Divine  announceinents,  so  clear  that  he  that 
runs  may  read  and  understand  them,  men  must 
interpret  them  by  a  human  standard,  must  find  out 
the  hidden  principles  on  which  they  rest,  which  God 
hasj  not  revealed,  and  must  prove  them  to  be  con- 
sistent, honourable,  righteous,  and  altogether  worthy, 
as  they  judge  of  the  Great  Being.  These  system- 
builders,  who  valued  nothing  which  could  not  be  put 
into  the  mould  of  a  syllogism,  and  was  not  constructed 
according  to  the  laws  of  Aristotle,  must  syllogise  on 
the  Divine  Kedemption.  And  they  did,  to  the  admira- 
tion of  the  schools,  but  with  the  direst  effect  on 
Christianity.  Too  speedily  they  reduced  the  Divine 
to  the  human,  and  narrowed,  and  dwarfed,  and 
crippled  God's  simple,  glorious,  unencumbered 
plan,  till  that  which  was  high  as  heaven  and 
broad  as  eternity,  shrank  to  the  measure  of  a  man, 
and  to  the  paltry  proportions  of  a  sum  in  common 
arithmetic. 

The  theory  of  salvation,  boldly  sketched  with  in- 
genious subtlety  by  Anselm,  admitted  of  being  ex- 
tensively worked  out  in  many  minor  details,  and  its 
capability  in  this  respect  was  very  early  tested  and 
exhibited.  Thomas  Aquinas,  himself  a  master  in 
logic,  a  profound  theologian,  and  a  man  of  extraor- 
dinary piety,  analysed  much  further  than  Anselm 
had  done,  and  subdivided  the  great  work  of  the  Ee- 
deemer,  and  adjusted  its  separate  parts  to  the  sepa- 


462  ORIGIN    AND    GROWTH    OF 

rate  necessities  of  man.  By  him,  for  the  first  time, 
that  distinction,  now  so  famiHar  to  theologians,  was 
drawn  between  the  active  and  passive  obedience  of 
Christ.  The  sufferings  of  the  Saviour,  his  passive 
obedience,  Aquinas  laid  down,  were  the  payment  to 
Justice  of  the  debt  of  sin,  whereby  men  were  righte- 
ously set  free  from  all  its  penal  consequences.  His 
personal  virtues  on  the  other  hand,  his  conformity  in 
his  soul  and  in  his  life  to  the  perfect  will  of  God, 
constituted  his  active  obedience,  and  formed  a  fund 
of  supererogatory  merit,  on  the  ground  of  which  men 
could  be  accepted  as  perfectly  righteous,  and  ac- 
quired a  just  title  to  heaven.  That  is  to  say,  in 
addition  to  the  imputation  of  human  sin  to  Christ, 
which  was  embodied  in  the  theory  of  Anselm,  a 
totally  new  dogma  was  now  inculcated  for  the  first 
time,  that  of  the  imputation  of  Christ's  personal 
righteousness  to  sinful  men. 

It  would  be  tedious  and  of  little  practical  value 
to  detail  the  innumerable  questions  and  discussions 
that  arose  out  of  the  dogma  of  satisfaction  to  Divine 
justice.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  from  its  first  exposi- 
tion by  Anselm,  it  was  accepted  very  widely,  all  but 
universally,  as  a  fundamental  truth.  But  with  its 
acceptance,  the  logical  passion  and  the  propensity  to 
systematise  were  by  no  means  quieted.  On  the  con- 
trary, both  found  abundant  scope,  even  within  the 
limits  of  this  single  article  of  faith ; — whether  the 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    SATISFACTION.  463 

satisfaction  of  Christ  was  in  itself  absolutely  or  only 
relatively  necessary ;  whether  this  was  the  only  method 
by  which  God's  purpose  of  redemption  could  have 
-vbee^  achieved,  or  whether  out  of  many  possible 
methods  this  was  simply  that,  which  in  His  sove- 
reign wisdom,  God  selected;  whether  the  satisfac- 
tion to  Divine  justice  was  rendered  on  behalf  of  all 
mankind,  or  only  on  behalf  of  the  elect ;  whether 
the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  were  a  perfect, 
literal  carrying  out  of  the  sentence  of  the  Divine 
law,  or  not  rather  a  merciful  relaxation  of  its  seve- 
rity ;  whether  they  were  an  exact  equivalent  for  the 
eternal  punishment  of  transgressors,  or  were  merci- 
fully accepted  by  God  as  an  equivalent,  though  not 
really  such ;  so  also,  whether  on  the  ground  of  the 
satisfaction  rendered  by  Christ  men  are  justified  be- 
fore God  through  faith  alone,  or  through  an  incipient 
holiness,  the  work  of  God's  Spirit,  or  partly  through 
both  ?  These  are  among  the  questions  which  gave 
rise  to  endless  divisions  among  Koman  Catholics  and 
Protestants  alike,  and  on  which  much  subtlety,  much 
vehemence,  and  no  little  erudition  and  genuine  piety 
were  expended  to  no  good  purpose,  and  with  no  bene- 
ficial result. 

Luther's  crowning  peculiarity  of  belief — the,  to 
him,  "  articulus  stantis  vel  cadentis  ecclesiae" — was  the 
doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone.  And  in  order 
to  appreciate  this  peculiarity,  to  understand  truly 


464  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OP 

what  he  meant  hy  it,  and  how  he  had  been  led 
up  to  it,  the  previous  circumstances  must  be  very 
distinctly  brought  to  mind.  The  abuses  connected 
with  the  Popish  dogma  of  indulgences,  it  is  well 
known — the  money-price  by  which  they  could  be 
obtained,  to  any  amount,  by  any  person,  be  his 
character  what  it  might — the  public  sale  of  them, 
and  the  plea  used  at  the  confessional,  that  penances 
enjoined  by  the  priest  were  cancelled  by  purchased 
indulgences ;  —  these  were  the  proximate  causes 
which  acted  on  Luther's  mind,  and  eventually  led 
to  the  Protestant  Keformation.  He  saw  clearly 
that  it  was  idle  to  allege  that  indulgences  were  no 
licence  to  sin,  and  did  not  release,  and  were  not 
meant  to  release,  men  from  the  real  penal  conse- 
quences of  sin,  either  here  or  hereafter,  and  that 
they  only  absolved  from  the  claims  of  the  Church, 
and  from  ecclesiastical  penalties  and  censures.  He 
saw  clearly  that,  in  effect,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
practically  and  really,  in  the  lives  of  the  great  mass 
of  the  people,  indulgences  amounted  to  a  full  per- 
mission to  sin,  and  were  universally  so  considered. 
Luther  had  no  quarrel  at  this  time  with  the  doctrine 
of  satisfactions,  human,  minor  satisfactions,  for  sins 
confessed,  satisfactions  enjoined  by  the  Church,  as 
befitting  tokens  and  means  of  penitence.  On  the 
contrary,  in  his  mind,  this  was  in  harmony  with 
the  higher  and  far  more  important  doctrine  main- 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF   SATISFACTION.  465 

tained  by  Anselm  and  Aquinas,  and  long  universally 
accepted,  of  one  sole'  satisfaction  to  Divine  justice, 
for  human  guilt  rendered  by  Christ  on  the  cross. 
To  this  last  idea,  especially,  from  his  childhood 
he  had  been  thoroughly  trained,  and  never  aban- 
doned it  as  an  essential  article  of  Christian  faith. 
All  his  accustomed  thoughts,  and  all  his  habits 
and  modes  of  judging,  had  grown  up  along  with 
it,  and  would  have  been  wrenched  and  shocked  by 
its  rejection.  In  connexion  with  this,  it  must  be 
remembered  that,  as  an  Augustinian  monk,  he  had 
accepted  the  doctrine  of  salvation  by  free  grace, — 
nor  only  so,  but  after  a  long  and  painful  course  of 
inward  conflict,  of  distressing  soul-experience,  this 
article  of  belief  had  become  to  him  a  life  within. 
He,  for  himself,  when  all  else  failed,  had  found  the 
peace  of  God  in  this  refuge.  When,  therefore,  the 
question  was  asked,  satisfaction  to  God  ?  by  whom  ? 
Luther's  answer  was  instant  and  profound,  "  by 
Christ,  by  Christ  alone."  Or,  when  the  farther 
question  was  put,  "  How  does  Christ's  satisfaction 
become  available  to  us?"  the  reply  was  not  less 
assured  and  prompt,  "  by  faith,  by  faith  alone,  with- 
out works  of  any  kind,  in  any  sense — by  grace,  by 
the  free  grace  of  God,  not  by  merit,  unless  the  hand 
of  the  beggar  can  claim  merit,  which  simply  accepts 
an  alms." 

The   free  love  of  God  in  Christ  was  the  vital, 

2g 


4:66  ORIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OF 

glowing  centre  of  Luther's  faith,  and  the  hidden 
source  of  success,  all  through  his  course,  as,  always 
and  everywhere,  it  has  been  the  source  of  strength 
and  triumph  wherever  it  has  been  proclaimed. 
This  is  the  very  primitive  New  Testament  of  God, 
its  deepest  spirit,  and  its  highest  meaning.  There 
is  power  in  this.  Divine  power — power  which  finds 
its  way  to  the  human  heart.  This,  and  not  the 
weak  logic  or  the  false  reasonings  of  the  Keformers, 
but  this  simple.  Divine  gospel  was  welcomed  by 
Europe,  touched  its  population  to  the  core,  drew 
them,  in  a  way  they  knew  not  and  could  not  resist, 
to  the  cross,  and  was  felt  to  be  at  once  a  healing 
balm  and  a  cleansing  and  vivifying  spirit.  When 
the  Keformers,  trained  as  they  had  been,  applied 
their  mere  understanding,  their  logical  faculty,  to 
the  Divine  redemption,  and  attempted  to  make  out 
the  rationale  of  it,  all  their  educational  tendencies, 
and  all  their  habits  of  thought,  led  them  inevitably 
to  the  theory  of  Anselm,  and  so  much  the  more 
as  it  was  felt  to  be,  and  really  was,  a  tower  of 
strength  as  against  the  doctrine  of  salvation  by 
human  merit.  But  their  preachings  were  widely 
different  from  their  logical  argumentations.  It  is 
true,  they  never  sought  to  conceal  what  we  venture 
to  pronounce  their  error,  when  occasion  required  its 
utterance.  They  gloried  in  it  as  the  very  truth  of 
God.     But  that  which  was  prominent  in  their  po- 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF   SATISFACTION.  467 

pular  addresses,  and  in  their  innumerable  fugitive 
pieces^  that  which  really  moved  the  multitudes,  as 
it  once  moved  the  crowds  in  Jerusalem  on  the  day  of 
Pentecost,  was  redeeming  love,  the  pure  redeeming 
love  of  God,  in  Christ  Jesus.  "  For  God  so  loved 
the  world,  that  He  gave  His  only-begotten  Son,  that 
whosoever  believeth  in  him  should  not  perish,  but 
have  everlasting  life."  Salvation  by  grace,  not  by 
merit,  salvation  through  faith,  not  through  works, 
was  the  motto  inscribed  on  the  standard  of  the  Ke- 
formation ;  and  by  these  simple  words,  and  not  by 
their  hard  logic,  or  their  artificial  schemes  of  thought, 
the  Eeformers  took  possession,  in  perpetuity,  of  a 
large  part  of  Christendom. 

On  this  principle,  we  interpret  the  history  of  the 
evangelical  churches  from  the  Keformation  down  to 
this  hour.  For  three  hundred  years,  their  course  has 
been  often  triumphant.  If  there  has  been  success 
anywhere  in  the  spread  of  Christianity,  if  there  has 
been  manifest  power,  power  for  highest  good,  any- 
where, it  has  been  in  connexion  with  them.  Unde- 
niably, God  has  been  in  them  and  with  them,  and 
the  Spirit  of  God  has  marvellously  wrought,  through 
them,  for  the  conversion  and  moral  regeneration  of 
the  world.  Of  what  avail,  then,  it  is  asked,  are  argu- 
ments, when  what  they  prove  is  at  once  set  aside  by 
an  appeal  to  irresistible  facts  ?  It  is  a  fact  that,  in 
the  last  two  or  three  centuries,  the  theology  of  the 


468  ORIGIN   AND   GEOWTH   OF 

evangelical  churclies  has  been  potent  for  good  beyond 
any  other  single  cause,  or  combination  of  causes. 
"What  but  this,  it  is  asked,  has  changed  the  face  of 
entire  Europe,  has  elevated  and  influenced  the 
masses,  and  has  touched,  most  deeply  and  perma- 
nently, not  only  the  religious  and  moral,  but  the 
intellectual,  social,  and  political  condition?  What 
but  this  has  founded  schools,  built  hospitals,  made 
provision  for  the  poor,  the  sick,  the  friendless,  even 
the  reprobate?  What  but  this  has  stemmed  the 
tide  of  infidelity,  created  missions  at  home  and 
abroad,  effected  the  most  marvellous  conversions  of 
character  and  of  life,  aroused  the  careless,  instructed 
the  ignorant,  reclaimed  the  vicious,  comforted  the 
sorrowful,  and  soothed  the  dying?  Myriads  have 
found  true  peace  in  this  faith,  and  have  died,  re- 
joicing in  the  hope  of  immortality  I 

JSTo  candid  person  would,  for  a  moment,  deny  that 
the  evangelical  churches,  with  all  their  faults,  griev- 
ous and  gross  as  they  may  be,  have  ever  exhibited  a 
life,  and  love,  and  power,  and  effectiveness,  which 
contrast  painfully  with  the  barrenness,  and  coldness, 
and  death  in  other  quarters.  But  all  the  while,  the 
question,  why  and  how  this  came  to  pass,  has  been 
only  quietly  begged,  not  fairly  answered.  There  is  an 
element  of  surpassing  power  in  evangelical  teaching 
which  we  mix  up  in  our  thoughts  with  other  and  alien 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF    SATISFACTION.  469 

causes,  but  whicli  itself  alone  is  abundantly  sufficient 
to  account  for  all  the  facts.  In  despite  of  all  else, 
the  evangelical  churches  have  persistently  lifted  on 
high  the  ever-living  truth,  "  salvation  by  grace,"  the 
free,  pure,  holy  grace  of  God.  Their  speculative 
conceptions  have  been  daringly  irreverent,  their  rea- 
sonings have  been  narrow  and  false,  but  their  feeling 
of  the  essential  spirit  of  the  New  Testament  has  been 
true,  and  deep,  and  right.  Even  in  periods  of  fever- 
ish and  dangerous  excitement,  while  much  that  was 
wild,  and  false,  and  even  essentially  impious,  may 
have  been  thundered  forth,  the  grand  and  chief  theme 
has  ever  been  the  love  of  the  cross.  It  is  marvellous, 
at  such  times,  how  the  impassioned  preacher  seems 
to  forget  utterly  what  he  imagines  he  believes  to  be 
true  in  reason — such  dogmas  as  reprobation,  and 
satisfaction  to  justice,  and  imputation — and  how  he 
breathes  out  only  the  deep  spirit  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, dwells  on  the  love  of  Christ,  and  beseeches 
men  to  be  reconciled  to  God,  and  not  to  receive  the 
grace  of  God  in  vain.  Those  who  are  at  all  ac- 
quainted with  the  history  of  religious  revivals,  well 
know  that  the  rationale  of  redemption,  as  it  has  been 
proudly  called,  and  the  subtle  syllogism  which  de- 
monstrates the  justice  of  God  in  saving  men,  are 
unthought  of  for  the  moment,  and  that  only  a  mes- 
sage of  pure  mercy  from  the  Holy  Father  is  an- 


470  ORIGIN   AND   GROWTH   OP 

nounced  to  listening  thousands,  and  with  extraor- 
dinary effect,  often  only  temporary,  but  often  also 
permanent  and  life-giving. 

Calvin,  far  more  than  Luther,  was  the  theologian 
of  the  Eeformation.  Not  that  Luther  wanted  eru- 
dition— far  otherwise  ;  but  he  was  the  ardent,  en- 
ergetic, and  indomitable  leader  of  a  movement  which 
he  had  to  command,  and  whose  various  fortunes,  in 
the  hot  conflict  of  opposing  interests  and  parties,  he 
had  to  watch  and  direct.  Calvin,  a  late  adherent  of 
the  enterprise,  a  man  of  acute  and  penetrating  in- 
telligence, richly  endowed  by  nature  and  highly  cul- 
tivated, of  extensive  and  varied  erudition,  an  indefat- 
igable student,  and  most  severe,  dogmatic,  and  in- 
flexible in  his  convictions  of  what  he  conceived  to  be 
truth  and  duty,— Calvin  occupied  a  totally  different 
position.  His  special  work  was  with  Protestantism, 
as  a  new  development  of  thouglit,  and  as  a  new  form 
of  Christian  worship  and  of  church  order.  The  last 
does  not  concern  us  here ;  and  in  the  first,  Calvin's 
office  was  to  gather  up  the  scattered  elements  and 
utterances  of  Protestant  thought,  and  to  form  them, 
as  he  best  could,  into  a  compendious  unity.  A  born 
systematiser,  as  he  may  be  truly  called,  a  trained  and 
skilled  logician,  he  had  to  give  a  name,  and  a  place, 
and  a  visible  shape,  among  contending  schemes  of 
thought,  to  Protestant  theology.  And  he  did,  with 
consummate  ability  and  with  astounding  success. 


\,     ^HE    DOCTEINE    OF    SATISFACTION.  471 

His  commentaries,  invaluable  at  the  time,  and  im- 
portant on  several  accounts  at  this  day,  do  not  con- 
cern us  here.  His  "  Institutes "  were  the  original 
source  of  his  influence  while  he  lived,  and  are  to  a 
great  extent  the  basis  of  modern  evangelical  teaching. 
It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  they  pronounce  very  definitely  on  the  eternal 
decrees  of  God,  election  and  reprobation ;  and  that 
they  discuss  the  doctrine  of  sacrifice,  and  after  the 
manner  of  Anselm,  that  of  satisfaction  to  justice. 
Two  short  quotations  shall  here  be  introduced,  to 
illustrate  the  mode  and  the  spirit  in  which  Calvin 
deals  with  the  most  sacred  subjects  : — "  Had  Christ 
been  murdered  by  robbers,  or  tumultuously  sacrificed 
in  a  sedition  of  the  mob,  his  death  would  have  been 
no  kind  of  satisfaction.  But  when  he  was  sisted  as  a 
criminal,  was  accused  and  crushed  by  witnesses,  and 
condemned  to  death  by  a  judge,  we  understand  by 
these  tokens  that  he  sustained  the  character  of  a 
wicked  criminal."  ^  Again,  "  Nothing  had  been 
efiected,  if  Christ  had  only  died  a  corporeal  death, 
but  it  was  incumbent  on  him  also  to  feel  the 
severity  of  divine  revenge,  in  order  that  he  might 

^  "  Si  a  latronibus,  jugulatus  fuisset,  vel  tumultuarie,  caesus  per 
seditionem  vulgi,  in  ejusmodi  morte,  nulla  satisfactionis  species 
exstitisset.  Varum  ubi  reus  ad  tribunal  sistitur,  testimoniis  arguitur 
et  premitur,  ipsius  judicis  ore  morti  addicitur,  his  documentis, 
intelligimus,  ipsum  personam  spontis  et  malefici  sastinere." — Calv.. 
Insti.,  Tholuck,  Berlin,  1846,  p.  330,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  16,  sec.  5. 


472  OEIGIN   AND    GROWTH    OF 

both  ward  off  wrath  and  satisfy  a  righteous  sentence. 
....  Wherefore,  we  wonder  not  if  he  be  said  to 
have  descended  into  hell,  since  he  endured  that  death 
which  is  inflicted  by  an  angry  God  on  the  wicked.'^  l 
Surely  this  is  horrible  and  blasphemous  enough. 

But  we  cannot  righteously  judge  of  any  produc- 
tion, or  its  author,  by  a  few  exceptional  passages. 
Taking  the  work  as  a  whole,  and  freely  admitting 
its  many  great  excellences,  it  is  nevertheless  difficult 
from  itself  alone,  to  account  for  its  prodigious  influ- 
ence at  the  time,  and  in  successive  ages,  an  influence 
almost,  if  not  quite,  without  a  parallel  in  the  history 
of  religious  literature.  Beyond  doubt,  the  work  was 
precisely  what  was  most  needed  at  the  time,  in  order 
to  give  unity  and  energy  to  Protestantism,  as  a  new 
faith.  None  of  the  men  of  the  time,  Beza,  Farel, 
Melancthon,  or  even  Luther  himself,  were  equal  to 
such  a  production,  so  comprehensive,  compendious, 
systematic,  and  logically  constructed.  Calvin's  repu- 
tation for  marvellous  ability  for  learning,  and  for 
finished  scholarship,  had  travelled  before  him.  The 
Keformation  wanted  such  a  man,  and  when  he  ap- 
peared, welcomed  him  with  enthusiasm,  and  thanked 

^  "  Nihil  actum  erat,  si  corporea,  tantum,  morte,  defunctus  fuisset 
Clii'istus,  sed  operae,  simul,  pretium  erat,  ut  divinae  ultiouis  severi- 
tatem  sentiret,  quo,  et  irae  ipsius  intercederet  et  satisfaceret  justo 
judicio.  .  .  .  Ergo  si  ad  inferos  descendisse  dicitur,  nihil  mirum 
est,  quum  earn  mortem  pertulerit,  quae  sceleratis  ab  irato  Deo  in- 
fligitur." — Ccdv.  Insti.,  Tholuck,  Berlin,  1846,  lib.  ii.,  cap.  16,  sec.  10. 


THE   DOCTKINE    OF    SATISFACTION.  473 

God  for  his  advent.  But  there  are  some  historical 
facts,  perhaps  little  known,  certainly  little  considered, 
which  deserve  to  be  looked  at  impartially  in  their 
bearing  on  this  subject. 

Calvin  was  educated,  up  to  manhood,  in  (as  we 
should  speak)  all  the  superstitions  and  errors  and 
follies  of  Popeiy.  At  eighteen  years  of  age,  he  held 
two  small  benefices  in  the  Church  of  France.  For 
three  or  four  years  afterwards  he  devoted  himself  to 
the  study  of  law,  and  at  the  end  of  that  period 
returned  to  divinity.  In  1532,  in  his  twenty-tliird 
year,  he  published  a  commentary  on  Seneca's  two 
books,  "  De  Clementia,"  and  certainly  had  not  then 
declared  himself  on  the  side  of  the  Eeformation.  In 
1536,  when  he  was  most  probably  in  his  twenty-sixth, 
certainly  not  more  than  his  twenty-seventh  year,  he 
sent  forth  the  "  Institutio  Eeligionis  Christianaa." 
Between  this  original  edition  and  the  latest  issued 
in  his  life-time,  there  is  a  great  difference,  but  the 
original  is  unaltered  to  the  last,  and  appears  entire, 
only  with  extensive  additions  on  many  important 
points.  We  venture  to  suggest  that  it  is  not  specially 
assuring,  to  those  who  would  judge  of  men  and  things 
with  candour,  yet  with  severe  justice,  that  a  very 
young  convert,  at  most  only  four  years,  escaped  out 
of  the  heart  of  Komanism,  withal  a  very  young  man, 
at  most  in  his  twenty-seventh  year,  who  could  not 
certainly  have  reached  a  very  reliable  maturity,  or 


474  ORIGIN    AND    GROWTH    OP 


a  very  extended  experience  in  any  direction,  issued 
a  treatise  respecting  the  very  loftiest  and  holiest 
mysteries,  and  embracing  the  entire  sphere  of  theo- 
logy which  was  accepted  at  the  time,  and  has  been 
accepted  ever  since,  by  nearly  the  whole  of  the 
evangelical  chm'ches,  as  expressive  of  their  deepest 
faith. 

But  far  as  Calvin  and  the  Eeformers  ventured  in 
prying  into  the  hidden  decrees  of  God,  (impiously 
too  far,  as  many  wise  and  good  men  at  this  day 
judge,)  even  this  was  not  the  fixed  limit.  The  spirit 
of  unholy  curiosity  once  indulged,  grew  by  what  it 
fed  on,  and  waxed  still  more  bold  and  irreverent, 
and  found  its  ultimate  and  least  guarded  exposition 
in  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith,  and  in  the 
writings  of  English  Puritans,  and  Scottish  Presby- 
terians. Up  to  within  the  last  forty  or  fifty  years, 
this  fully  developed  system  was  unreservedly  main- 
tained by  the  evangelical  churches.  It  is  maintained 
in  all  its  integrity  in  several  quarters  at  this  day. 
We  are  taught  to  conceive  a  council  of  eternity  held, 
and  an  eternal  covenant  entered  into  between  the 
three  persons  of  the  Trinity — Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost — called  the  covenant  of  redemption.  "  The 
plan  was  drawn  from  all  eternity,  in  the  council  of 
the  Trinity.  .  .  .  All  hands  of  the  glorious  Trinity 
are  at  work  in  this  building.  The  Father  chose  the 
objects  of  mercy,  and  gave  them  to  the  Son,  to  be  re- 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    SATISFACTION.  475 

deemed  ;  the  Son  purchased  redemption  for  them ;  and 
the  Holy  Ghost  applies  the  purchased  redemption  un- 
to them."i  According  to  eternal  predetermination,  first 
of  all,  a  covenant  of  works  was  entered  into  between 
Grod  and  Adam,  as  the  representative  of  mankind; 
but  this  failing,  a  covenant  of  grace  was  established 
between  God  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  elect  on  the 
other  hand,  or  rather,  Christ  the  mediator,  in  the 
name  of  the  elect.  "  By  the  decree  of  God,  for  the 
manifestation  of  His  glory,  some  men  and  angels  are 
predestinated  unto  everlasting  life,  and  others  fore- 
ordained to  everlasting  death." 2  Again,  "  The  rest 
of  mankind  "  (besides  the  elect)  "  God  was  pleased, 
according  to  the  unsearchable  counsel  of  His  own 
will  ,  c  .  to  pass  by,  and  to  ordain  them  to  dishonour 
and  wrath  for  their  sin,  to  the  praise  of  His  glorious 
justice."  3 

Let  us  not  forget  that  the  men  wlio  consented  to 
these  words,  and  adopted  them  as  their  own,  were 
wise  and  holy  and  gracious  souls,  but  we  must  none 
the  less  sternly  denounce  their  errors.  It  would  be 
difficult,  by  any  combination  of  human  terms,  to 
transcend  this  fancied  exposure  of  the  secrets  of 
eternity.  Even  apart  from  the  blasphemy,  which  is 
enough  to  fill  the  mind  with  an  agony  of  horror,  the 
whole  is  pure,  mere  fiction,  without  a  shred  or  scrap 

^  Boston  on  Covenants.    Edin.  1798,  p.  14. 

2  Westminster  Confession,  cap.  3,  sec.  3.  '^  Ibid.,  sec.  7. 


476  ORIGIN   AND   GROWTH    OF 

of  foundation  in  fact.  A  covenant  of  works !  Where  is 
the  document  ?  where  the  evidence  of  its  existence  ? 
A  covenant  of  grace, — a  contract  or  bargain  between 
God  and  Christ  in  the  elect's  name,  on  certain  con- 
ditions, and  involving  certain  promises  and  penalties  ! 
Is  it  possible  to  attach  an  idea  to  it  that  is  not  blas- 
phemous ?  An  eternal  covenant  of  redemption,  be- 
tween the  persons  in  the  Grodhead !  Who  was  privy 
to  it,  or  who  has  been  faithlesj?  enough  to  betray 
the  secret  ?  A  Council  of  Eternity  !  What  herald 
convened  it,  or  what  meaning  can  we  affix  to  it  that 
is  not  inexpressibly  degrading?  Oh,  unhallowed, 
impious,  miserable  invention  of  the  human  brain, 
which  yet  has  been  accepted  as  inspiration !  If 
ever  the  Divine  was  brought  down  to  the  human, 
it  is  here.  Men  in  difficulty  summon  a  council  of 
the  wisest  and  the  best,  and  debate  and  discuss  for 
the  removal  of  the  difficulty,  and  concert  extensive 
plans,  and  pre-arrange  all  the  minute  details  of 
operation.     But  is  this  the  Great  God  ? 

That  wild  and  daring  transcendentalism  which,  in 
a  greater  or  less  degree,  essentially  affects  evangelical 
theology  at  this  hour,  is  not  by  any  means  the  most 
fatal  evil.  The  doctrine  of  satisfaction  to  Divine 
justice  is  immeasurably  worse  in  its  moral  tendency. 
This,  in  any  form,  necessitates  for  its  basis  that 
wliich,  though  partially  true,  as  a  whole  is  absolutely 
false.     The  only,  at  all  events  the  highest  and  most 


THE    DOCTRINE   OF    SATISFACTION.  477 

widely  inclusive,  relation  in  which  God  stands  to 
men,  is  conceived  to  be  that  of  a  king,  a  moral 
governor  to  his  subjects,  or  rather  that  of  a  judge 
to  criminals  standing  at  his  bar.  This,  beyond  all 
comparison,  is  the  deadliest  error.  Evangelical 
teachers  admit  unqualifiedly  that  justification,  in 
their  sense,  is  purely  a  forensic  term.  It  means, 
and  only  means,  the  act  of  God  formally  acquitting 
and  pardoning  a  criminal  at  His  bar. 

Nothing  can  be  more  true  than  that  we  are  every 
moment  instantly  judged,  righteously  and  impartially 
judged  by  God.  Nothing  can  be  more  true  than  that 
the  punishment  of  sin,  in  the  case  of  every  human 
being,  be  he  classed  with  the  righteous  or  with  the 
wicked,  takes  effect  in  him  at  once  and  inevitably.  But 
this  has  nothing  to  do  with  forensic  forms  and  words, 
nothing  to  do  with  a  process  of  law  or  a  criminal 
trial.  We  have  sought  to  showi  that  the  word 
"  justification,"  in  the  New  Testament,  does  not,  and 
never  does,  mean  acquittal  or  pardon  or  any  judicial 
act,  but  is  only  and  wholly  the  real  rightening  of  the 
spirit  of  man,  and  its  voluntary  return  to  God.  And 
the  great,  the  essential,  the  universal  relation  in 
which  God  stands  to  His  rational  creatures,  is  not 
that  of  a  king  or  a  judge,  but  that  of  a  father  to  his 
children.  There  are  cases  in  which  He  may  be  fitly 
likened  to  a  human  judge  or  a  human  king,  but  there 

1  Chap,  vi.,  p.  160,  &c. 


478  ORIGIN    AND    GROWTH    OF 

are  innumerable  cases  in  which  this  comparison  ut- 
terly fails.  This  is  a  figure,  and  only  a  figure,  and 
of  limited  and  occasional  application.  God's  Fa- 
therhood, on  the  other  hand,  is  a  reality.  He  is  a 
Father,  a  real  Father.  At  every  moment,  and  in 
every  possible  combination  of  circumstances,  this 
abides  a  profound  and  immovable  fact,  not  a  figure 
The  New  Testament  has  consecrated  and  emblazoned 
this  essential  relation  between  God  and  men.  Per- 
haps no  single  word  was  so  often  on  the  lips  of  our 
blessed  Lord  than  this,  Father  —  the  Father,  my 
Father,  our  Father  in  heaven,  your  Father.  Christ 
our  Lord  has  very  affectingly  taught  us  to  think  of 
God  as  our  Father,  the  Father  of  souls,  of  all  souls. 
It  is  confounding  and  distressing  that  any  who  really 
love  the  Kedeemer,  and  really  reverence  his  teaching, 
should  labour  not  to  understand  and  feel  how  much 
this  relation  must  embrace,  but  within  how  narrow  a 
meaning, — or  rather  no  meaning  at  all, — it  may  be 
compressed. 

We  adopt  the  ennobling,  Divine  utterances  of  the 
Saviour  of  men,  in  all  their  fearless  breadth  of  mean- 
ing, and  put  aside  as  very  worthless  the  fallacious 
logic  of  some  evangelical  theologians.  However  men 
may  be,  and  on  some  grounds,  and  for  certain  pur- 
poses they  may  properly  be  compared  to  criminals  at 
a  judgment  bar,  there  is  another  and  far  wider  and 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF    SATISFACTION.  479 

deeper  truth,  that  they  are  children — not  may  be 
compared  to,  but  really  are  children — and  that  God 
is  their  Father,  their  true  Father.  This,  at  all 
events,  was  not  only  Christ's  conception,  but  his 
favourite  and  chosen  conception,  of  the  essential, 
universal  relation  between  God  and  man ;  that  of 
children,  undutiful,  rebellious,  it  is  true,  but  chil- 
dren in  the  presence  of  a  Holy  Father,  who  pitied, 
and  loved,  and  yearned  over  the  souls  He  had  made. 
With  what  inimitable  nature,  and  beauty,  and  pathos 
this  is  revealed  in  the  parable  of  the  prodigal,  cannot 
be  too  often  remembered.  We  might  have  fancied  in 
this  story,  that  perhaps  after  long  years  of  ingrati- 
tude and  of  abandoned  vice  on  the  part  of  his  mis- 
guided son,  the  father's  heart  must  have  grown  cold 
and  hard.  Perhaps  the  old  man  was  inclined  to  stand 
on  his  dignity,  and  to  require  some  acknowledgment 
and  reparation  before  he  should  make  any  advance. 
Perhaps  he  hesitated  to  welcome  the  prodigal  at  once, 
and  began  to  fear  how  it  might  affect  his  other  chil- 
dren, and  his  own  authority,  and  the  discipline  of 
his  family.  But  no.  This  is  not  even  human  na- 
ture, at  its  best  and  highest.  How  much  less  can  it 
be  Divine  nature !  Our  Father  in  heaven  has  not 
only  waited  long  for  His  apostate  children.  He  has 
sent  after  them  into  the  far  country.  He  has  Him- 
self gone  forth  to  seek  them.     In  the  form  of  the 


480  OKIGIN   AND    GEOWTH,    ETC. 

Son  of  man  He  has  come  down  among  them,  in 
order  to  touch  their  hearts,  and  to  startle  them  into 
love  and  life.  And  now,  by  the  cross  and  the  grace 
of  Jesus,  He  is  intreating  the  world  to  be  reconciled 
to  Him  I 


CONCLUSIOK 

THE  distinctive  revelation  of  the  New  Testament, 
the  chosen  and  special  teaching  of  the  Master 
Himself,  is  the  Fatherhood  of  Grod,  and  the  child- 
ship  of  all  souls. 

But  there  are  minds  peculiarly  constituted  and 
conditioned,  noble,  earnest  minds,  and  of  most  pure 
aspirations,  who  are  unable  to  receive  this  message, 
and  to  whom  the  Great  Being  is  only  an  overwhelm- 
ing mystery.  They  have  pondered  so  profoundly,  so 
gloomily,  so  long,  and  so  long  in  vain,  the  awful 
problem  of  the  universe,  that  they  are  heljolessly 
perplexed  and  bewildered.  It  would  be  cruel  to 
say  that  they  disbelieve,  for  they  agonise  to  believe, 
but  they  cannot.  The  unbeginning,  unending,  un- 
changing One  is  to  them  reality,  but  a  dreadful,  an 
inconceivable  reality — mystery,  only  mystery,  unfa- 
thomable mystery !  The  Great  Father,  let  us  not 
question,  well  knows  such  souls,  has  them  in  His 
holy  keeping,  and  judges,  them  in  His  righteousness, 
His  tenderness,  and  His  wisdom,  but  not  as  we, 

2h 


482  CONCLUSION. 


puny,  harsh,  and  rash  mortals,  often  dare  to  do. 
The  fear  which  crushes  them,  all  fear,  simply  as 
such,  is  only  bad,  but  their  profound  reverence,  be- 
fore what  they  are  unable  to  comprehend,  must  be 
redemptive  and  holy,  and  it  were  well  if  many,  whose 
faith  is  little  wanting  in  boldness,  knew  more  than 
they  do  of  godly  fear,  of  reverence,  and  of  awe.  But 
such  struggling  and  burdened  natures  are  few  and 
rare  among  mankind.  The  evil  of  the  world  is  not 
too  profound  or  too  anxious,  but  too  little  thought, 
about  the  Great  Being. 

It  is  not,  and  cannot  be  doubted,  that  multitudes 
even  of  enlightened,  virtuous,  and  good  men,  so 
esteemed,  deliberately  exclude  God  from  their  com- 
mon thoughts,  on  the  ground  that  the  idea  is  too 
high  and  too  sacred  to  be  entertained,  except  in  rare 
and  select  moments.  Still  greater  multitudes  pro- 
nounce it  irreverent  and  unnatural,  even  weak  and 
mawkish,  perhaps  pharisaical  and  hypocritical,  a  fit 
subject  for  ridicule  or  indignant  scorn,  to  speak  and 
act  as  if  we  cherished  the  abiding  thought  of  the 
Great  Unseen  Presence.  With  reference  to  the  im- 
mense mass  of  human  beings  over  all  the  world,  it  is 
mournfully  true,  that  God,  the  Living  God,  is  sel- 
dom, if  at  all,  in  their  thoughts.  Practically  and 
virtually,  they  have  no  God,  and  rarely,  if  ever,  bring 
the  idea  of  God  to  bear  on  their  lives,  and  on  their 
spirit.     Is,  then,  the  very  foundation  of  our  being  a 


CONCLUSION.  483 


lie  ?  Is  the  crowning  dignity  of  our  nature,  before 
which  all  other  proud  distinctions  are  not  to  be 
named,  a  thing  to  be  ashamed  of  ?  Is  the  highest 
and  sacredest  of  all  truths,  the  most  inspiring  and 
ennobling  of  all  thoughts,  to  be  put  aside,  concealed 
and  ignored?  Is  this  not  worthy  of  being  enter- 
tained, or  is  it  of  such  small  importance,  and  capable 
of  exerting  so  little  influence,  that  it  need  give  us  no 
concern  whether  we  entertain  it  or  not?  These 
questions  throw  us  back  at  once  on  first  principles. 
Is  our  true  parentage,  our  descent  from  God,  a  delu- 
sion, a  fancy  ?  Are  we  only  waifs  of  chance,  blown 
hither  and  thither  by  the  fickle  breath  of  time,  rest- 
ing a  while  on  some  stray  spot,  and  again  floated 
away,  until  we  are  drawn  resistlessly  into  the  mighty 
eddying  vortices  of  eternity,  and  lost  ?  But  no.  If 
the  teaching  of  the  New  Testament,  if  the  special 
teaching  of  our  Divine  Lord,  be  true,  nothing  can  be 
surer  than  this,  that  God  is  our  Father.  The  human 
soul  is  the  off'spring  of  the  Eternal.  The  profoundest 
and  the  truest  of  all  facts,  that  which  underlies  all 
other  facts,  is  this,  that  we  are  in  God,  and  God  is  in 
us.  Mysteriously,  incomprehensibly,  but  most  really, 
we  are  akin  to  God,  and  are  ordained  to  be,  in  our 
spiritual  nature,  the  finite  image  of  the  Infinite.  The 
most  awful,  but  the  tenderest  and  closest  of  all  our 
relations,  is  that  in  which  we  stand  to  God.  Our 
whole  being  at  every  moment  is  in  Him,  and  only  in 


4S4  CONCLUSION. 


Him.  ^N'ot  our  visible,  animal  life  only,  but  our 
soul-life,  our  true,  eternal  life,  is  in  Him,  even  as  tlie 
life  of  the  plant  is  in  the  ground,  out  of  which,  and 
in  which,  it  grov/s.  Tear  up  the  plant,  throw  it,  with 
its  roots  uncovered,  on  the  earth,  and  it  becomes  a 
dead  thing,  and  must  inevitably  die. 

In  the  deepest  sense  of  all,  we  cannot  be  separated 
from  God,  essentially,  physically,  we  cannot  be  sepa- 
rated from  God,  except  by  annihilation.  Whether 
we  will  or  no,  all  our  faculties  and  capacities  are  in 
God,  wholly  God-given,  Avholly  and  perpetually  God- 
sustained.  But,  morally,  we  are  able  to  cut  ourselves 
off  from  the  fountain  of  life.  It  is  not  simply  the 
fact  that  we  are  cut  off,  but  we  cut  ourselves,  off — it  is 
our  doing,  our  doing  solely — we  will  it,  we  put  forth 
effort,  successful  effort,  to  t^iis  end.  The  moral 
relation  is  one  wholly  of  consciousness,  of  desire  and 
of  purpose,  and  the  fact  of  moral  experience  is  simply 
this,  that  we  are  able  to  move  away,  and  be  as 
widely  apart  from  God  in  thought,  in  affection,  in 
will,  in  our  modes  and  grounds  of  judging,  in  our 
mental  habits,  and  in  our  aims,  as  if  no  God  existed. 
So  far  as  concerns  us,  our  thought,  our  wish,  our 
purpose,  there  is  no  God,  we  have  withdrawn  our- 
selves from  the  eternal  ground  of  our  being,  and 
stand  alone ;  so  far  as  concerns  us,  the  relation  to 
God  is  disowned,  and  all  the  openings  and  avenues 
are  wilfully  closed,   through  which  influence  from 


CONCLUSION.  485 


Him  might  flow  into  our  nature.  We  die,  morally, 
spiritually,  we  die,  as  necessarily  as  the  uptorn  plant. 
False  to  ourselves,  false  to  the  highest  Being  in  the 
universe,  and  false  to  His  holiest  claims,  we  are  no 
more  in  the  kingdom  of  truth  and  life,  but  belong  to 
the  kingdom  of  falsity  and  death,  for  all  falsity  is 
irrevocably  doomed  to  perish.  And  this  is  sin,  this 
conscious  moral  separation  from  God  is  sin.  The 
spirit  of  man,  breathed  out  by  the  Father  of  spirits, 
wilfully  severs  itself  from  its  source,  puts  God  aside 
from  thought,  ceases  to  recognise  His  presence,  and 
His  authority,  becomes  a  law  to  itself,  and  is  con- 
sciously governed  by  nothing  higher  than  its  own 
will.  That  is  sin,  in  essence  and  in  fact,  the  original, 
essential  heart  of  sin.  We  may  put  it,  and  rightly 
put  it  in  other  words — we  may  conceive  of  it,  as  the 
choice  of  what  is  known  to  be  wrong ;  or  again,  as 
the  wilful  abuse  of  moral  liberty ;  or  again,  as  the 
revolt  of  the  human  will  from  the  sway  of  judgment, 
and  conscience,  and  from  truth,  and  right,  and  love. 
But  the  earliest,  the  deepest,  the  universal  form  of 
sin  is  voluntary  separation  from  God,  in  thought 
and  in  heart. 

Two  great  fundamental  truths  lie  before  us.  On 
the  one  side,  the  abiding  and  cherished  sense  of  God, 
and  of  our  relation  to  God,  that  is  life,  only  that  is 
life.  On  the  other  side,  the  want  of  the  sense  of  God 
in  the  soul,  voluntary  separation  from  Him ;  that  is 


486  OONCI^USION. 


death,  that  is  sin,  the  real  root  and  cause  of  sin,  the 
fountain  of  all  evil  to  the  spiritual  nature.  And 
what  horrible  and  hideous  outgrowths  have  sprung 
from  this  accursed  germ,  tha  history  of  the  world, 
through  all  ages,  shall  reveal  too  clearly.  We 
shudder  at  the  atrocious  crimes  of  individuals,  and 
of  nations  ;  we  turn  away,  sick  at  heart,  from  the 
sweltering  corruptions  and  abominations  of  our 
common  humanity.  But  the  deadliest  evil  of  all, 
the  primitive  fountain  of  evil,  is  voluntary  separation 
from  God,  the  soul  forgetting  God,  disowning  God, 
obeying  its  own  perverted  will,  and  giving  loose  to 
all  its  own  mere  purposes,  passions,  and  desires. 
There  is  nothing  for  the  God-descended  soul,  no  life, 
no  light,  no  purity,  no  power,  and  no  joy,  except  in 
God,  in  conscious  and  chosen  union  with  God,  the 
holy,  loving  God.  All  is  wrong,  and  must  be  for 
ever  wrong,  so  long  as  the  first,  and  highest  of  all 
our  relations  is  broken,  disowned,  unknown,  and 
unfelt. 

The  essential  nature  of  sin,  if  we  have  justly 
interpreted  it,  reveals  its  only  antidote  and  method 
of  cure.  The  one  supreme  end  of  spiritual  pro- 
vidence is  to  draw  man  back  to  God,  to  reconnect 
and  reunite  man  with  God.  The  true  recovery  of  the 
soul  to  itself,  to  a  sense  of  its  being  and  its  destiny ; 
the  true  subjugation  of  the  revolted  will,  and  the  true 
renewal  of  moral  liberty  and  moral  power— all  are 


CONCLUSION.  487 


contained  and  secured  in  the  one  design  to  restore 
God  to  His  own  world,  and  to  His  rightful  place  in 
the  mind  and  heart  of  man.  Hence  the  unveiling  of 
light,  the  true  light,  that  inward  darkness  might  be 
quenched ;  hence  the  enkindling  of  life,  that  moral 
death  might  be  swallowed  up  of  victory ;  hence  the 
revelation  of  love,  that  enmity  might  be  pierced 
through  and  slain ;  hence  the  manifested  God,  that 
men  might  see,  and  know,  and  feel,  the  Divine 
tenderness,  and  purity,  and  wisdom,  and  beauty,  and 
grace,  against  which  they  had  wickedly  rebelled. 

But  the  great  purpose  of  spiritual  providence,  un- 
like God's  designs  in  the  material  universe,  could  not 
be"  gained  by  force.  Power,  physical  power,  however 
vast,  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  The  accursed  foun- 
tain of  evil  in  the  soul,  unutterably  hateful  to  the 
Holy  One  as  it  was,  could  not  be  stopped  and  dried 
up  except  by  a  purely  spiritual  agency.  The  human 
will  could  not  be  forced,  it  might  have  been  destroyed 
at  any  moment,  it  might  have  been  annihilated,  but 
abiding  a  faculty  of  the  soul,  God  had  so  constituted 
it  that  force,  physical  force,  had  no  relation  to  it 
whatever.  Man  could  not  be  compelled  even  by  his 
Maker  to  love  goodness  and  to  choose  obedience.  In 
the  midst  of  all  Divine  or  other  influences,  whose 
potency  is  incalculable,  man,  constituted  as  he  was, 
must  choose,  not  another  for  him,  perfectly  freely,  of 
his  own  will,  he  must  make  his  choice.     Spiritual 


488  CONCLUSION. 


providence  could  evolve  itself  in  no  way  except 
through  moral  and  spiritual  agencies.  Of  necessity, 
unless  the  nature  of  the  soul  were  destroyed,  and 
every  spiritual  result  rendered  impossible,  men  must 
be  left  perfectly  free,  left  to  all  the  abominations  and 
miseries  into  which  the  abuse  of  moral  liberty,  if 
they  did  abuse  it,  might  drag  them  down.  Of  neces- 
sity sin,  if  they  were  determined  to  sin,  must  work 
itself  out,  in  all  possible  forms ;  and  all  nations,  all 
races,  and  all  ages,  must  be  suffered,  if  so  they  re- 
solved, to  riot  in  evil  and  in  falsity,  with  their  gods 
many,  and  their  lords  many,  and  their  rites  of  blood, 
and  their  murderous  wars,  and  their  inhuman  vices. 
But  spiritual  providence  was  not  asleep,  though  only 
spiritual  instruments  and  agencies  could  avail  in 
conducting  it.  Everywhere,  at  every  moment,  with 
every  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  with  every 
successive  age,  the  silent  purpose  of  Heaven  was 
ceaselessly  at  work.  It  would  be  fearfully  dishonour- 
ing to  imagine,  that  though  for  more  than  two 
thousand  five  hundred  years  after  the  apostasy  the 
great,  loving  Father  had  been  dealing  in  His  mercy 
and  His  wisdom  with  the  whole  world,  and  acting 
on  all  nations  and  all  times.  He  then,  for  thirteen 
hundred  years,  shut  Himself  up  in  Judea,  forsaking 
all  mankind  besides.  The  more  cruelly  unjust  to 
God  is  such  a  thought,  when  it  is  remembered,  that 
since  the  advent  of  Christ  He  has  again,  for  nearly 


CONCLUSION.  489 


two  thousand  years,   made  tlie   whole    earth    His 
sphere. 

Unquestionably  there  were  special  and  great  pur- 
poses, purposes  which  had  a  direct  regard  to  the 
highest  good  of  the  entire  world,  to  be  served  by  the 
Jewish  people.  But  the  God  of  the  Bible  never  was 
in  any  sense  the  God  of  the  Jews  only.  He  ever  was 
the  God  of  the  Gentiles  also.  He  is  the  Father  of 
all  souls,  and  He  loveth  the  souls  He  hath  made.  His 
mighty  purpose  to  draw  man  back  to  Himself  has 
ever  reigned,  as  it  is  reigning  now,  in  all  the  earth 
and  among  all  nations.  That  Holy  Spirit,  who  strove 
so  long  with  the  generations  of  men  before  the  flood, 
strove  as  ceaselessly,  we  cannot  doubt,  with  the  gene- 
rations that  followed.  In  spite  of  the  resistance,  and 
the  obduracy,  and  the  wickedness  of  His  creatures, 
God's  holy  design,  though  we  be  utterly  unable  to 
distinguish  and  unfold  its  separate  processes  and 
modes  of  development,  must  have  been  ever  advanc- 
ing, in  the  most  various  and  manifold  ways,  and 
through  means  of  the  most  various  and  manifold 
agencies,  nearer,  nearer  to  its  fulfilment.  All  the 
needed  preparations,  of  ten  thousand  kinds,  which 
we  cannot  comprehend  or  conceive,  must  ever  have 
been  maturing  in  all  lands,  and  through  all  ages, 
and  all  the  possible  instruments  and  influences  must 
ever  have  been  collecting  and  concentrating,  whereby 
the  last  and  perfect  revelation  of  truth  and  love  should 


490  CONCLUSION". 


be  ushered  in.  It  would  amount  to  a  denial  of  God, 
a  denial  of  His  wisdom  and  His  foresight,  to  doubt 
that  every  race  of  men,  and  every  successive  age,  had 
contributed,  however  unconsciourdy,  and  even  in  spite 
of  themselves,  contributed  also  in  the  best  possible  way, 
consistently  with  all  other  interests,  to  the  furtherance 
of  the  highest  good  of  the  whole.  Judea,  for  thirteen 
hundred  years,  had  its  own  special  and  sacred  office 
to  fulfil,  but  not  less  really,  though  in  far  other  modes, 
Phoenicians,  Assyrians,  Babylonians,  Egyptians,  Per- 
sians, Greeks,  and  Komans,  were  workers  for  God  in 
the  evolutions  of  His  mighty  spiritual  providence. 
All  may  be  dark  as  midnight  to  us,  when  we  attempt 
to  expound  what  is  so  vast  in  the  numbers  it  em- 
braces, and  in  the  time  over  which  it  stretches,  what 
is  besides  so  complicated,  so  interfused,  and  so  hope- 
lessly conflicting  and  contradictory.  We  may  blun- 
der egregiously  in  interpreting  Heaven  s  plan  in  rela- 
tion to  different  peoples  and  times.  Our  beautiful 
theories,  as  to  one  idea,  one  great  principle,  or  one 
particular  truth,  being  wrought  out  by  one  race,  and 
one  age,  and  another  by  another,  may  be  as  flimsy  as 
the  gossamer  web.  But  if  always  and  everywhere, 
there  has  been  a  loving  Father  of  men,  and  a  Holy 
Ghost,  who  strives  with  human  souls,  though  they 
resist  and  reject  Him,  it  abides  indubitable,  that 
through  all  the  ages,  and  over  all  the  earth,  God 
must  have  been  working   out   the  largest  amount 


CONCLUSION.  491 


possible  of  highest  good,  preparatory  to  the  final 
manifestation  of  Himself. 

It  dawned  at  length !  Light,  "  The  True  Light," 
broke  forth  in  a  dark  day.  Life,  "  The  Living  One," 
was  revealed  ;  and  there  were  some,  eighteen  hundred 
years  ago,  who  were  bold  enough  to  affirm,  "  We  have 
seen  it,  and  bear  witness,  and  show  unto  you  that  eter- 
nal life,  (that  Eternally  Living  One,)  which  was  with 
the  Father,  and  was  manifested  unto  us ;  that  which 
we  have  seen  and  heard  declare  we  unto  you,  that  ye 
also  may  have  fellowship  with  us:  and  truly  our  fel- 
lowship is  with  the  Father,  and  with  His  Son  Jesus 
Christ."  1  A  wonderful  reunion  was  to  be  organised, 
a  mysterious  but  most  real  fellowship  was  to  be  in- 
stituted, and  was  already  forming  itself — God,  and 
Christ,  and  men — God  and  men,  through  Christ,  the 
holy  medium. 2  The  wicked,  wilful  separation  from 
God  was  doomed  to  come  to  an  end,  the  cruel  es- 
trangement was  to  cease  and  be  marvellously  healed. 
God,  banished  from  the  thoughts  and  the  hearts  of 
men.  Himself  came  down  to  earth  to  make  peace, 
and  to  reconcile  His  children  to  their  Father.  Long 
and  far  away  they  had  been  wandering  from  Him, 
wandering  in  darkness,  wandering  on  to  death.  But 
their  Father  loved  them,  had  ever  loved  them,  and 
in  all  the  weary  ages  of  separation  had  done  every- 
thing for  them  which  was  possible,  by  His  Provi- 

^  1  John  i.  2,  3.  ^  ggg  jjote  on  page  27. 


492  CONCLUSION. 


dence  and  His  Spirit ;  teaching,  and  warning,  and 
punishing,  and  rebuking,  and  impelling,  and  restrain- 
ing, and  guiding,  and  remonstrating  with  them,  so 
long  as  they  would  listen  to  His  voice,  and  would 
suffer  His  merciful  striving. 

All  the  while,  sin  was  only  abhorrent  to  God,  His 
unutterable,  eternal  abhorrence,  and  nmst  not,  and 
could  not,  be  endured.  In  His  mind  and  in  the 
unalterable  law  of  the  universe,  there  could  be  no- 
thing for  sin  but  death,  eternal  death.  In  His  mind 
and  in  the  unalterable  law  of  the  universe,  there  could 
be  no  salvation  for  man,  except  from  sin,  not  from  its 
consequences  merely,  but  first  and  chiefly  and  wholly 
from  the  damning  root  of  evil  itself.  There  Avas  no 
alternative.  Either  man  must  die  or  sin  must  die, 
the  one  or  the  other — nothing  else.  Here  is  the 
profound  mystery  of  redeeming,  holy  love.  Man  is 
saved  and  sin  perishes.  The  purpose  is  revealed  in  the 
fact.  It  is  not  a  human  thought  or  a  human  achieve- 
ment, but  a  divine  decree.  Sin  shall  and  must 
perish.  A  mortal  blow  shall  be  aimed  at  it  in  the 
soul,  and  it  shall  be  slain  and  cast  forth  for  ever. 
And  this  is  not  a  purpose  only  or  a  prediction,  but  a 
history.  In  innumerable  myriads  of  human  souls, 
sin  has  been  struck  and  pierced  through  and  slain. 
"  What  are  these  which  are  arrayed  in  white  robes, 
and  whence  came  they  ?  ....  These  are  they  which 
....  have  washed  their  robes  and  have  made  them 


CONCLUSION.  493 


white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb/'l  "  The  blood  of 
Jesus  Christ,  God's  Son,  is  cleansing  us  from  all 
sin."  2  Kedeeming  dying  love,  is  the  mighty  purify- 
ing power  in  this  polluted  world.  How  shall  we 
chase  darkness  away,  except  by  pouring  in  light  ? 
How  shall  deadly  disease  be  stayed  except  by  purify- 
ing and  quickening  the  stream  of  life  ?  How  shall 
enmity  be  destroyed,  except  by  the  outbreathing  of 
deeper  love?  How  shall  separation  and  estrange- 
ment be  healed,  except  by  bringing  the  estranged, 
somehow,  face  to  face  ?  Therefore,  the  Great  Father 
drew  near,  very  near,  to  His  erring  and  sinful  chil- 
dren. 

If  men  will  not  return  and  inquire  after  God,  God 
himself  shall  come  down  to  seek  and  rescue  them. 
The  Luminous,  the  Beautiful,  the  Holy,  the  Wise,  the 
Loving,  the  Tender,  the  Gracious  Being,  shall  unveil 
(and  yet  veil)  Himself,  in  a  human  form.  All  that 
can  be,  shall  be  manifested  through  a  finite  medium, 
and  laid  open  to  the  eye  and  to  the  soul  of  the  world. 
Wisdom  such  as  never  fell  from  human  lips  shall 
distil  like  dew  on  the  ear  of  men.  Purity  without  a 
stain,  without  a  breath  to  dim  its  perfect  transpar- 
ency, shall  find  its  way  to  touch  the  guiltiest  natures. 
Power  which  mortal  arm  never  wielded,  power  seen 
even  in  the  look  of  the  countenance,  power  heard  even 
in  the  tone  of  the  voice,  shall  strangely  bring  down 

1  Kev.  vii.  13,  14.  2  i  j^j^jj  ^  7, 


494  CONCLUSION. 


into  the  soul  the  awful  feeling  of  a  Divine  presence. 
A  gentleness,  a  patience,  a  meekness,  a  swelling, 
overflowing  pity,  and  a  sweetness,  and  graciousness, 
never  found  on  earth  before,  shall  tell  yet  more  sub- 
duingly  of  God  and  heaven.  Above  all,  that  heart 
which  never  harboured  one  feeling  of  resentment  or 
anger,  which  was  loaded  with  sorrows  all  its  own,  and 
which  besides,  by  a  mysterious  commiseration,  bore 
the  griefs  and  the  sins  of  men  within  itself — that  heart 
which  was  so  truly  alone,  without  intelligent  sym- 
pathy in  a  single  quarter,  which  had  to  endure  mis- 
appreciation,  ingratitude,  treachery,  rancorous  hatred, 
and  the  vilest  cruelty,  and  did  so  without  a  murmur — 
that  heart  which  at  last  broke  and  burst  in  an  agony, 
not  of  pain  but  of  grief,  and  as  it  broke,  cried  out, 
"  Father,  forgive  them,  they  know  not  what  they  do," 
shall  proclaim  with  piercing,  passionate  intensity,  to 
the  world  and  to  all  ages,  what  the  invisible  Father 
truly  is,  and  shall  lay  open  the  very  innermost  nature 
of  the  Being  from  whom  men  had  revolted,  and  who 
now  besought  them  to  return  to  His  feet  and  to  His 
heart.  "  God  in  Christ  is  reconciling  the  world  unto 
Himself,  not  imputing  their  trespasses  unto  them." 

This  is  the  Divine  method  of  piercing  down  to 
the  deep  root  of  sin.  A  real  redemption  can  be 
achieved  in  no  other  way— can  never  be  achieved 
until  man,  humbled  and  penitent,  is  restored  to 
God,  in  heart,  and  soul,  and  life.     Statesmen  and 


CONCLUSION.  495 


philanthropists  work  nobly  and  beautifully  on  the 
surface  of  humanity,  and  many  a  sore  mischief  is 
cured,  and  many  a  healing  influence  is  created, 
but  the  root  beneath  is  untouched,  and  is  as  rank 
and  strong  as  ever.  Philosophy,  and  science,  and 
literature,  and  art,  are  all  enlightening,  elevating, 
even  purifying,  but  neither  do  they,  or  can  they, 
touch  the  deadliest  evil  of  all  at  its  root.  The  crying 
want  of  the  human  soul  is  God,  the  living  God. 
Darkness  and  death  claim  it  as  their  own  till  it  finds 
in  God  its  light  and  life.  Were  God,  and  man's  re- 
lation to  God,  were  the  humble,  loving,  sense  of  God 
to  become  the  central  and  informing  soul  of  all  know- 
ledges and  all  studies,  then  philosophy  would  spring 
into  new  life,  and  become  at  once  more  ennobling  and 
more  profound;  science  would  become  more  lumi- 
nous and  more  quickening ;  literature  would  catch  a 
new  glow  and  flush  from  the  breath  of  Heaven,  and 
be  more  enkindling  and  more  beauteous ;  and  art 
would  be  radiant  with  a  sweeter,  a  holier,  and  a  di- 
viner grace.  It  is  the  most  fatal  of  all  mistakes  to 
judge  that  the  loving  sense  of  God,  a  holy,  redeem- 
ing God,  in  the  soul,  is  like  other  mental  possessions, 
one  which  we  may  have  or  may  want  indifferently. 
But  this  is  an  absolute  necessity  to  our  true  being. 
If  we  are  to  live,  really  to  live,  not  the  animal,  and 
not  even  the  intellectual  life,  but  the  true  soul  life, 
the  eternal  life,  we  must  be  in  God,  in  conscious  and 


496  CONCLUSION. 


cliosen  union  with  God.  Keligion,  so  called,  is  not  a 
separate  department  of  human  knowledge,  a  branch 
like  other  branches  of  human  inquiry.  It  is  rather  the 
all-encompassing  atmosphere,  in  which,  whatever  b6 
our  studies  or  our  works,  we  can  alone  truly  breathe 
and  live,  the  one  inspiring  influence  which  alone 
puts  a  soul  into  our  efforts,  and  gives  them  a  Divine 
meaning.  Eeligion  is  the  sun  of  the  whole  inner 
nature,  intellectual,  moral,  and  spiritual,  without 
which  all  is  sterile,  cold,  and  dark.  And  it  is  this 
sun  which  shines  from  the  face  and  the  cross  of  Jesus 
Christ,  our  Lord,  and  reveals  in  him  a  holy  and  re- 
conciling Grod. 

But  let  us  not  mistake,  Not  at  Bethlehem,  or  on 
Calvary,  for  the  first  time  did  hope  and  salvation 
dawn  on  our  world.  The  Eternal  Logos,  the  true 
Light,  that  lighteth  every  man,  was  ever  in  the 
world  from  the  beginning,  sole  medium^  between 
God  and  men,  and  kindled  many  a  precious  ray,  and 
lit  up  many  a  helpful,  glittering  star.  There  was 
a  night  before  the  day,  there  were  stars  before  the 
sun  arose,  and  even  darkness  had  its  worlds  of  light, 
that  are  unseen  by  day.  In  the  long  night  of  the 
world,  many  a  weary  pilgrim,  travelling  across  the 
untried  pathway,  wandering  on  the  mountains,  with 
their  deep  ravines,  their  treacherous  morasses,  and 
their  fatal  precipices,  lifted  up  his  eyes  and  blessed 

'  See  note  on  page  27. 


CONCLUSION.  497 


God  for  the  stars.  He  heard  a  voice  within,  and 
often  a  true  voice  without,  from  fellow-travellers  like 
himself,  and  that  Spirit  from  above,  who  never  leaves 
human  souls,  so  long  as  they  will  suffer  His  striving, 
guided  him  at  last  out  of  darkness,  and  error,  and 
sin,  into  the  land  of  light  that  never  fades.  God  is 
light,  God  is  life,  luminous  life  and  living  light, 
the  one  fountain  of  all  life  and  light,  material  or 
spiritual,  in  the  universe.  The  soul  itself  is  a  Divine 
spark  from  the  uncreated  fire,  and  wherever  there  is 
a  single  glimmering  ray,  or  a  single  feeble  pulse  of 
vitality,  its  only  source  is  God.  But  light  to  the 
soul,  and  life  to  the  soul,  pre-eminently  to  the  sinful 
soul,  is  love.  There  is  no  light  like  that  which 
beams  from  loving  eyes.  There  is  no  radiance,  no 
quickening  inspiration,  like  that  which  bathes  the 
loving  heart.  Through  love,  light  makes  its  way  to 
the  nature,  suffuses,  softens,  subdues  it,  and  wakens 
all  its  Wealth  of  sweetness  and  of  purity.  The  most 
luminous  object  in  the  universe,  because  the  symbol 
of  Infinite  Mercy,  is  a  dark  cross.  The  truest  source 
of  life,  because  the  divinest  utterance  of  love,  is  a 
cruel  death.  The  living  Jesus,  the  dying  Jesus,  is 
the  Kedeemer  of  the  world.  God  Incarnate,  God  i7i 
Christ,  He  is  '*  the  Life  and  Light  of  men." 

THE  END. 


JOHN  F.  TBOW  &  CO.,  PKINTEES,  50  GBEKNB  STEBKT,  N.  T. 


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